


A Dream Within A Nightmare

by Accidental_Ducky



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5329115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidental_Ducky/pseuds/Accidental_Ducky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, similar to the one she had as a kid. Don't be stupid, the Boogeyman's not real and he's certainly not on the other side of this door. Still, she hesitated as she reached out a shaking hand to turn the knob and swing the door open. Instead of some horrible creature hunched over with bright red eyes that was sacrificing a helpless farm animal, she found nothing but dusty floors. "Who ya gonna call," she mumbles softly.</p><p>As she closed the door and walked back to her room, a pale man comes out of the shadows and begins to pace once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Moving Into the Monster House

_A great monstrous thing that will devour its host_. At least, that was Kady's first thought upon seeing the house. It really was large compared to the houses back in the village two miles behind, made to Victorian standards and fully repaired. Her father had told her that it was nearly unsalvageable when he first found it, but he had quickly hired a whole team of workers to resurrect the thing. _That's what it is, a thing, not a home_. Beside her, Milo had come to a stop and was staring at the thing with the same disgust as Kady.

"Well," their father asks with a smile," what do you guys think?" _I think we should go back home, that we should sell this place, that we should get as far away as we possibly can_.

"It's great," she says instead, knowing it didn't matter what she really thought.

"Yeah," Milo echoes," it's exactly how I imagined it." Their dad, August, stood proudly on the porch, hands planted on his hips and an excited gleam lighting up his hazel eyes. This was their adventure, the one they didn't get to go on until their mother had died. They were supposed to be in New Zealand, exploring Hobbit country and the mountains, but here they were instead—surrounded by dead trees and blood red snow. _Crimson Peak, indeed_. The clay beneath their feet turned the snow ruby red, a truly disturbing thing when you first spot it.

"Is the snow always that color?"

"It's pretty creepy, Dad." The light in their father's eyes dimmed a bit at the criticism and he stares down at the ground as well.

"Well, that's just the clay coming up out of the ground," August answers. "There used to be a huge mine under the land, but I made sure it was completely filled in to avoid one of you two falling in." _And stop the house from sinking_. From the pictures she had seen, the clay was coming up through what was left of the floor, what parts of it that hadn't rotted away. "Come on in, guys!" He was excited again, like a little boy at Christmas as he gestures at the teens. Sharing another look, Milo and Kady walked up the porch stairs and into the house, not expecting it to look much better than the outside.

Most of the inside was made up of dark wood like the outside, a few colorful patterns appearing on the floor from where the sun shined through stained glass windows. Kady had to give it to her dad, the place really was beautiful no matter how much of a monster it reminded her of. All the doorways were arched and right across from her was an old fashioned elevator with a gilded gold cage around it instead of comforting metal and steel. _Lift_ , she reminds herself _, that's what they're called in England_.

Still, despite its beauty, it was cold as Frosty's right cheek inside and she was almost tempted to go sit in the car. _Maybe if I threw myself on the ground and screamed, August would take us back to Oklahoma_. She missed her state, where the trees were just beginning to change colors and the air didn't seem so heavy. Best of all, there wasn't any snow on the ground yet.

Still, Kady manages a smile in her father's direction and she moves across the foyer to get a better look at the cage. That's really what it was, a rickety old bird cage with a lever inside to control which direction it went in. There were designs welded into the metal—because it's obviously metal now that she has a better look—that reminded her skating eights.

"Stay out of that," August warns," the workers couldn't get it working right and I don't want y'all getting hurt." Kady takes two quick steps backwards, half-expecting it to gobble her up. "The stairs are perfectly safe, though." Kady moves to look at the stairs, her hazel eyes widening when she realizes just how much of those this behemoth has. At least three landings above her head and she didn't realize how shocked she was until she felt Milo's finger under her chin, closing her mouth.

"Don't want to catch flies, Kady-bug," he jokes, using her old nickname. "How many rooms does this place have?"

"More than thirty, but I haven't gotten around to counting. The attic's split into three rooms and they're all pretty huge. Take it easy with the lights because the electricity bill's gonna cost us an arm and a leg."

"I can imagine." Most of the chandeliers hanging overhead looked wired for electricity, but the next room she walked into had a massive fireplace and a silver candelabrum resting on the mantle.

"That's weird." August crosses the room with four long strides and picks the candle holder up, studying it with some interest. "This looks like the real deal, too! One of the workers must have found it and left it here for us to have." That was the only way he could get the workers to do anything with this place, by offering them a hefty sum and the promise that they could have any hidden treasures they could find. There was a high-backed love seat near the fireplace, the back made to look like butterfly wings, and there was a low table across from it.

"Are we staying here tonight," Kady asks, stuffing her hands in her jean pockets. She didn't want to stay in this place, not when it was dark and she couldn't see where she was running. _What if I start sleepwalking and fall over one of the banisters?_

"Of course we are, it's an hour and a half drive back to the village." He must have seen the scared look that flitted across her face because his expression hardened. _Cop mode_. "Kadence Marie Hastings," he scolds, pointing at her," I won't have you moping around again." Kady makes a face at that, staring down at her scuffed shoes instead of at August.

"Yes, sir." There was no arguing with him when he's in cop mode, not that Kady felt like arguing right now anyway. She was exhausted from the flight over here and just wanted to collapse in a bed, but she was hoping said bed wasn't hiding a boogeyman underneath it. "Which room is mine?"

"Whichever one you choose." He was back to normal now, looking happier than he has since Estelle had died. "As long as it's not on the third floor."

"Is the third floor forbidden," Milo asks, stepping out of the room in order to spot the third floor landing.

"No, it's just…. A little spooky to be honest." August scratched the back of his head, a habit that appeared whenever he was tired or stressed. In this case, he's probably a little of both. _Who wouldn't be stressed in a house like this one?_ "Alright, you two can have first dibs, but no fighting." Again, Milo and Kady's gazes lock before both of them make a dead sprint for the wide staircase, bumping each other out of the way while their father shouted behind them. "Careful, that's mahogany!"

While Milo branched to the left once they reached the second floor, Kady went to the right and all the way to the very last door, throwing it open to find a spacious bedroom. The bed seemed to dominate the room, done up with pink and white curtains and matching comforter, there was a white nightstand beside the bed, a bookcase on the right wall beside another doorway while an old wardrobe stood against the left wall, and a powder blue desk was under one of the large windows against the same wall as her headboard. The walls were painted a pale lilac with white trim and part of the wood floor was covered in a soft, faded yellow rug.

Curious, she moves to her right to peer through the doorway and finds that she has her own bathroom complete with porcelain sink and a clawfoot tub, both furnishings have bronze fixtures and looked like the originals. The floor was white tile that matched the walls, but it was brand new and shiny, and a shelf was fixed to the wall closest to the tub for holding towels and her washing stuff; above the sink was an old mirror, stained at the bottom corner, but mostly clean.

"I figured you'd choose this room." Kady lets out a squeak and spins on her heel to face her dad, August laughing a little when he realizes he'd scared her. "Your brother's decided on the room down the hall and I'm in one downstairs."

"That's great," she mumbles, coming back into the bedroom with another of her forced smiles. Overhead there was another one of the chandeliers and a smaller version of the downstairs fireplace built into the wall a few feet from the wardrobe. "What made you buy this place, Dad?" She'd been dying to know ever since he decided to fly them all out here since he'd never professed a dire need to visit England before.

"You don't know?" Kady arches one of her brows, continuing to stare up at her father until he gives another small laugh. "It belonged to your great-great-grandparents on your mother's side and she inherited it when they kicked the bucket. We were supposed to spend last summer fixing this place up, but then…." _Then she got sick and wasted away in a hospital_. "But we're here now and we're going to make the best of it."

"Should I start wearing my hair in pigtails and playing with knives?"

"Ha, ha," he returns sarcastically, catching her reference," Sorry, Kady-bug, but we have a nicer house than the Addams family."

"Don't call me Kady-bug." _Only Milo is allowed that nickname, he's the one that gave it to me_. They were only a year apart, but they've relied on each other all their lives and felt more like twins. While August and Estelle had run all over the country on vacations, Milo and Kady were left behind with grandparents to take care of them. _Now he expects us all to be one big and happy family_.

"Well, I'll go get the bags out of the car and you just get some rest, Kadence." She nods, not really paying attention as he slips out of her room. Letting out a breath, she flops backwards onto the queen-sized bed and stares up at the pink canopy above her, wondering when August had dug it out of storage. She hasn't been obsessed with pastel colors since fifteen when she decided she liked a grunge look better—horror movie posters on her walls, dark blue blankets, plaid printed pillows that were soft to the touch, and a desk covered in her little drawings.

She doesn't like this room, she doesn't like this house, and she especially doesn't like this damn weather.

 _I just wanna go back home_.


	2. Phantom Pacing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OUTFITS: http://www.polyvore.com/crimson_peak/collection?id=4825103

It wasn't until late that they had finally moved all of their boxes inside and arranged the boxes in a way as to avoid tripping over them in the middle of the night. Kady had never felt so tired and it was easy for her to fall asleep that night, hidden under the heavy pink comforter, dressed in her warmest pajamas, and her fuzziest socks. Had she been in Oklahoma, she would have just slept in a huge tee and panties, but it was far too cold here to do that. She was even cold after piling on a few more blankets, shivering in her sleep.

She dreamt that she was trapped in a blizzard that night, ice surrounding her on all sides and snow piled up to her hips, trapping her in place. Only, it wasn't the pure white color she was used to, this snow was as red as the clay beneath the house, the clay itself oozing through the ground and covering her bare feet. She kept moving, something told her that stopping would mean death. Her chest was tight, her gasping breaths appearing as white smoke, and still she kept walking forward with her arms wrapped tightly around her.

She felt as though a thousand needles were pricking her exposed skin, the sharp gusts of wind like a slap to the face that drove the air out of her lungs. But ahead, just a few paces beyond, was the warm glow of a fire and she needed to reach it. The deep drifts of snow made it hard, the slick ice made it difficult, but the sucking red clay nearly made it impossible. She needed the heat that the fire offered, needed to thaw.

The closer she got to the fire, the harder it was to move as the red clay rose further up her body, coating her numb feet and working its way up her legs, ruining the green silk of her pajama bottoms. Soon she found herself stumbling, her legs failing her and causing her to fall to her knees in the freezing snow. And then she felt the warmth of the fire, saw the glow brighten as it came towards her. It wasn't until there was a pale hand in front of her face that she realized the fire had been a person.

On instinct and hoping for the warmth it emanated, she placed her hand in the offered one, letting out a gasp when the long fingers close over her hand and help her to her feet. She couldn't make out the person's features due to the shadows surrounding them, but he was the warmest thing she's felt since coming to England.

"Let's get you inside, Miss Hastings." His voice was like silk, smooth and sensual with an accent that would leave you begging for him to say anything. With their hands still clasped, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and led her back to the monster looming before them, through the front door, up the wide staircase, and down the hall to her room. "Sleep now, dear one, for you have a lot to do here before you leave." As she closed her eyes and allowed the man to pull her comforter up to her chin, she wasn't aware that the man's pale hand wasn't just pale—it was almost transparent, seemingly filled with white smoke that curled whenever they touched.

"G'night," she managed, voice loud in the stillness of the house. The man smiles down at her, the deep gash under his right eye seeping with crimson smoke. He stayed on the edge of her bed, watching the teen sleep and ensuring that his great-great-granddaughter wouldn't wander out again. Moments later, a horrendous groaning sound echoed through the house, another sign that it was waking up after lying dormant all these years.

And Thomas Sharpe frowned when he heard the soft notes of the piano floating up from the parlor.

* * *

Kady woke slowly the next morning, aware of how warm it was in the room where it had been jarringly cold when she went to bed the previous night. She takes a moment to just stare at the wardrobe across the room before begrudgingly kicking off the blankets and getting out of bed. She was barefoot, so the second her feet came in contact with the wood floor beyond the safety zone of her rug, she let out a little yelp and jumped backwards.

"Son of a bitch," she hisses, running back to her bed and rooting around for the socks she'd managed to lose last night. When she finally has the pink and black striped socks on her feet and her robe thrown on over her PJs, Kady makes her way downstairs to the small kitchen. Unlike the other rooms in the house, the kitchen seemed to have everything cramped together.

No one else was awake yet, so Kady was free to do some cooking without August drooling or Milo complaining about the mess she might make. She wasn't sure what time it was, just that her internal alarm clock wouldn't let her sleep any longer and neither would her grumbling stomach. They had worked right through supper yesterday and she was starving for some omelets. Kady moves over to the iPod that was always kept in the kitchen and brings up her cooking playlist, her head bobbing along to the music as she gets out the needed ingredients, cooking spray, and a muffin tin.

" _I had a barbeque stain on my white tee shirt_ ," she sings along quietly, spraying the tin before adding in the diced ham and tomatoes," _and she was killing me in that mini skirt, skipping rocks on the river by the railroad tracks_ …" Next she grabbed a mixing bowl and eggs, cracking a few of them open and dumping them in the bowl, tossing the shells in a nearby trashcan; after that, she stirred in some baking powder, milk, and vegetable oil. " _She had a suntan line and red lipstick, I worked so hard for that first kiss_ …" She poured the mixture over the ham and tomatoes before adding shredded cheese and putting the tin in the oven. " _And a heart don't forget something like that_."

After setting the timer and pausing the song, she leaves the kitchen to explore the first floor a little better. The front hall is massive, allowing a good view of the landings and doorways that branch off from it; all of the wood was dark and it seemed the only thing that didn't suck in the light was the ancient elevator next to the staircase. Hanging from the wall on her right was an old fashioned mirror similar to the one in her bathroom; there were splotches in the bottom left corner and near the middle of it.

She moves to look closer, taking in the dark bruises under her eyes and the way the black of her Hufflepuff robe and the poor lighting made her tanned skin seem yellow. Her dark blonde hair reached her waist in a tangled mess and there was a splotch of something red on one of her cheeks. She moves a hand up to wipe it off, brow furrowing as the red stuff crumbles against her fingers. _Clay_. Her heartbeat sped up as she remembered the dream, the details hazy, but the sucking clay coming back with full clarity.

Had she really gone for a late night stroll last night? She parts her robe in order to see the bottoms of her pajama pants, the green now russet from the clay that seeped up through the ground. "What the fuck," she breathes out. Then something was moving quickly out of the shadows, making her spin to look behind her and finding nothing. Something was in here, something big, and she bet it wasn't friendly. Shaking the uneasy feeling off, Kady runs back to her room, getting dressed for the day partly because August didn't like his kids running around in pajamas and partly because she wanted to get rid of any evidence that last night's dream was real.

It was Saturday—House Pride Day in the Hastings household—so she dressed in a gray skirt that stopped around her knees, dark blue winter tights, a white button down under a dark gray sweater, a yellow and blue tie, dark blue heels to give her some height, a Twenty-One Pilots bracelet, and a blue and yellow headband to keep her hair out of her eyes. She slid the headband on after she managed to tame her thick hair, then she went back downstairs to the kitchen seconds before the timer goes off. After that, she's too busy to notice much of anything, taking a couple of the omelets into the parlor with her where a piano sat in the middle of the room.

There were several boxes piled up against the far wall and fresh white paint on the walls that still made her nose crinkle at the smell, but what captured her attention was the fire place that took up a large portion of the left wall, made up of stone with words carved into it. _Ad montes oculos levavi. Was it Latin?_ The fireplace had to be part of the original house since no one she knew even tried to write in Latin anymore. She moved over to it and ran her fingers along the words, wondering what they meant.

"What'cha staring at, Kady-bug?" Milo's voice makes her jump, the teen laughing when she turns to glare at him. "Relax, kiddo."

"Don't call me kiddo, you're only a year and a half older than me." Milo just grins, coming to stand next to her and stare at the words she was just studying.

"To the hills we turn our eyes," he proclaims in a deep booming voice, puffing his chest out and furrowing his brow to look tough.

"Is that what it says?"

"I should know, I did take Latin my Freshman and Sophomore years." He basically deflates, returning to his relaxed stance and softer tone. "It's a pointless class, by the way, don't get drawn in by the cool sounding words." Kady smiles up at her brother as he looks around them, finding the familiarity in his features comforting. No matter where they went, Milo didn't seem to change too much and she could always count on that. The front of his dark brown hair—their mother's hair—stuck up under the beanie he wore, his lips were thin, hazel eyes identical to hers in their almond shape, but his nose seemed a little too big.

He was dressed in Slytherin green and black with a dark green sweater that had 'Slytherin Quidditch' printed on it in silver with crossed broomsticks, black sweats with the Slytherin coat of arms and house name printed on one leg of it, a green and silver scarf to help fight the cold, his green and black robe nearly identical to the Hufflepuff one Kady still had on, and a pair of black sneakers.

"Kids," August calls out from the front hall, voice echoing loudly in the house," where are you guys?" Milo and Kady share a look before leaving the parlor and walking into the kitchen where August had wandered, their father already biting into one of the four leftover omelets. "Kady, I'm so glad you can cook."

"Someone has to," she remarks, sitting down at the table. "The salsa's in the refrigerator if you want some." She never understood the appeal of ruining perfectly good eggs with salsa, but that was one thing August and Milo agreed on, so she kept her mouth shut. "I'm not cooking lunch, though, y'all can heat up some of those mini pizza things in the freezer." Milo winks at her, not able to speak since he had a mouthful of food. _August doesn't tolerate bad manners; it would only get us locked in our rooms for three days with welts on our asses from his leather belt._ August Hastings fully believed that disobedient children deserved punishment, and it didn't take long for Milo and Kady to learn what would get them swats.

"Kady, I want your room unpacked by supper."

"Yes, sir."

"That goes for you, too, Milo." He sends a stern look in Milo's direction, one of his eyebrows cocked up. He was on the verge of cop mode and Kady hoped Milo wouldn't say something that would get him in trouble. Milo met Kady's gaze first, hazel eyes locked and he read the plea she had there. _Don't anger him_.

"Yes, sir," Milo finally said with a respectful nod at their father. "I'll start as soon as I finish eating." August gave a nod back, going back to his breakfast. It always amazed Kady how fast August's moods could shift, their mother always joking he could go from happy to mad in half a second. He managed to hide that pretty well until Kady broke a vase when she was four, then she went around with a red ass for a week.

"Kady, I'll do the dishes since you cooked, but you should go start on your room." She makes a noise of acknowledgment, sending Milo another look before walking out of the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs to her room. It wasn't as messy as August would say it was, mostly just boxes stacked up in the corner, but she didn't want to be grounded, so she set to work quickly. Clothes went into the wardrobe, the few books she had were stacked neatly on her desk, her laptop was set perfectly in the middle of it with a cup full of markers and colored pencils beside it; her sketch pads went in the top middle drawer while the erasers and calligraphy pens went in the top left drawer. The pink teddy bear she's had since childhood goes on the other side of her laptop and the toiletries go in the bathroom.

All in all, it took her a good three hours to get everything the way she wanted it, but what caught her attention was that she was still cold even after the sweat-inducing work. _Am I sick or is it really so cold in here?_ Next door, she heard someone moving things around and she wondered why anyone would be nosing around in a room they'd left empty. She walks out of the bedroom and stops in front of the closed door of the room next to hers, wiping her sweaty hands on her robe. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, similar to the one she had as a kid. _Don't be stupid_ , _the Boogeyman's not real and he's certainly not on the other side of this door_. Still, she hesitated as she reached out a shaking hand to turn the knob and swing the door open. Instead of some horrible creature hunched over with bright red eyes that was sacrificing a helpless farm animal, she found nothing but dusty floors.

"Who ya gonna call," she mumbles softly.

As she closed the door and walked back to her room, a pale man comes out of the shadows and begins to pace once more.


	3. Tickle Fights & Bookcases

Kady was seated in the front hall with her back against one of the walls, using a dark blue Sharpie to color on the bright white toe of her Converse, the blue blending nicely with the dark purple to symbolize the sunset. Her plan was to use a silver Sharpie after the background dried and color in the _Enterprise_ since it would go with the galaxy design printed on the sides of her shoe. Milo was somewhere upstairs, probably still working on his room if the obnoxious singing and occasional curse was anything to go by, and August was in the parlor sweeping.

Since she had finished her room so quickly, August had allowed her to be lazy until the new maid showed up. _That_ would be a new thing for Kady to adjust to since they've never had one before. Whenever she thought of maids, she pictured an old crone with gray hair tucked into a strict bun, a high-collared black dress, and sensible shoes—well, that or a girl around her age in a fetish costume, but she doubted that would happen.

No, it was more likely that the former would show up on their doorstep. _What are we supposed to do with a maid—throw pizza pockets at her, leave small amounts of dust on things for her to clean?_ To be honest, Kady wasn't thrilled at the idea of having a maid, but she also knew this house would be impossible to maintain without a little help. Later on, if the maid worked out, there'd be another woman and two men joining as well, though Kady didn't know how the hell she was going to feed them all. She was making Chicken Alfredo tonight, but she would need to make a grocery list later on in case the maid didn't like what was in the kitchen.

It was made clear earlier that Kady would be the one cooking because August couldn't even make a simple pizza and Milo could burn water. _Oh well, at least I like cooking_. Estelle had taught Kady everything she needed to know and Kady's grandmother had taught her even more, so Kady was set for life as long as she didn't get burned out on it. As Kady began the outline of the _Enterprise_ in pencil, there came a knock on the front door that seemed to echo throughout the house.

"Kadence, could you get that," August called from the parlor. She didn't bother answering him, just setting the shoe down and getting to her feet, dusting off the back of her skirt before making her way over to the heavy wooden doors. The people on the other side were nothing like she'd expected the help to look like. The woman standing before her was the complete opposite of any maid she's ever seen on TV with straight black hair that fell past her shoulders and had bright blue streaks running through it, her complexion was pale with a few wrinkles, and she had warm brown eyes. Instead of a dress, she wore a pair of red and black checkered pants that hugged her shapely legs, a black leather jacket opened over a dark gray sweater that had a red heart on the front, a pair of sensible boots that had a thick heel, her left nostril was pierced twice by two small gold rings, and Kady could make out a dragon earing that started at the top of her ear and ended at the lobe where the tail pierced the soft flesh there.

Beside her was a little girl that might have been around five or six with hair just a shade lighter than the maid's and just as straight, she was slightly tanner than her mother, but her eyes were wide and dark enough that they could be passed off as obsidian; she wore a pair of dark blue jeans, a pink Aristocats sweater beneath a dark gray coat, dark blue shoes, a blue beanie pulled down over her ears, a Christmas charm bracelet, and a silver snowflake necklace. Both of them had one hand wrapped around the handle of their respective suitcases while their free hands were joined.

"You must be Emy," Kady greets with the sweetest smile she can manage, stepping to the side to allow both of them entrance. "I'm Kadence, August's daughter."

"Right," the woman, Emy, smiles, leading the little girl a few feet inside as Kady shuts the door. "This is my daughter, Amy, she'll be staying here, too." Kady offers the little girl a sincere smile, laughing softly when she hides behind her mother's leg. Kady noticed that the woman wore no wedding ring and wondered if that had been the deal closer when August had allowed her to interview. She has to be in her early or mid-thirties, just a few years younger than August.

"Um, do you want a downstairs room or upstairs?"

"Definitely downstairs, I don't want to chance Amy falling down the stairs in the middle of the night." Emy lets out a nervous laugh, prying her hand out of Amy's and resting it on the little girl's head. Kady motions for the pair to follow her, leading them to the bedroom the farthest away from August and flipping on the overhead light for everyone to see. It was a bit dusty in that room, but it wouldn't hurt Emy to start cleaning this room before she cleaned the rest of the house.

"Anyway, my father should be out here soon since he was only around the corner in the parlor and I'm sure you'll meet my brother at dinner, but Milo mostly passes time in his room."

"August told me he had two kids." _August already and not Mister Hastings? He must really like this woman_. All of Kady's and Milo's friends weren't allowed to use August's first name and they've known him almost as long as Kady and Milo have.

"Well, I hope you packed your magic bracelets because you're going to need them if you're working in this place," Kady says, only half joking as she nodded towards Emy's Wonder Woman suitcase. "See you guys later." She could hear the pair talking quietly as she moved back to the entrance hall, Amy laughing and making a tiny smile tug on Kady's lips. Unlike Milo, she actually liked little kids and had a feeling that she and Amy could be decent friends. _It's going to be confusing since their names are so similar, though_.

"Did you show them to a room," August asks, rounding the corner.

"Yeah, but you might want to wipe the dust off your forehead before you go and say hi." He had a long streak of dust or dirt one that spanned the length of his forehead, making the creases there more noticeable. August was only forty-five years old, but his job as a police officer already had wrinkles appearing prematurely on his darkly tanned face. He frowned more than he smiled, but Kady could see a bit of happiness in his eyes when Emy was mentioned. _I hope she's not a gold digger or something_.

"Thanks, sweetheart." And then August was walking back the way Kady had just come from, using the sleeve of his sweater to wipe at his forehead as he went. Kady just rolls her eyes, picking her shoe back up and making her way up the stairs to her brother's room. As she had expected, Milo was still working to get his room unpacked, his top half inside the tall box that held his books. With a grin, Kady tiptoes over to her brother and begins to work her fingers against his sides where she knew he was the most ticklish.

Milo lets out a high-pitched squeal before thrashing against her to get away, but the box allowed only limited movement and he was stuck until Kady decided to help him out.

"Kady," he calls breathlessly around his laughs," n-no! Bad, Kady-bug!" After a minute of struggle, he manages to throw himself backwards, knocking Kady sideways onto his bed and himself to the hard floor. The two share happy smiles as Milo rises up on his elbows, Kady taking the moment to observe Milo's new room. Like hers, Milo's room was spacious and had its own bathroom, but his walls were painted a deep blue with silver stars on the ceiling. There was no doubt in Kady's mind that their father still believed Milo was interested in astronomy just like he thought Kady was still obsessed with all things pink and girly.

Milo's bed was a four-poster like hers and his blankets were dark green while his pillowcases were silver, the rug that covered most of his floor was the same color as his walls, and his desk was a boring white. Boxes were strewn all over the floor, but most looked to be empty, and there were several posters covering the wall near his door and bed, most of them for his favorite bands but a few for the movies he and Kady went to see together—Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic World, Indiana Jones.

His painting stuff was set up near his desk, on the flat surface of his desk was his laptop and the drawing tablet that hooked up to it, a printer, and the stuffed bunny Kady had given him when she was four; beside his desk was a wardrobe similar to the one in Kady's room, but his doors were flung open to reveal the clothing inside. Half of the wall across from his bed had bookcases that were filled with all of his novels and above his desk was a large window that allowed him to see outside, but his showed a different angle of the yard than Kady's. Milo was the one that inherited a lot of talents in their family—he could draw, he could write fairly well, and he could sing well enough to have a decent YouTube following.

"You wanna help me with the last of my books," he asks, tossing a thick book beside her on the bed without waiting for her answer.

"No," she moans.

"Kadence Marie," he says using his Boss voice," you tickled me, so you're going to help me finish this." She rolls her eyes, grabbing the book and moving over to the bookcase closest to the desk, finding an empty space near the middle shelf and sliding it between his _Death Note_ manga and _War and Peace_. "You can borrow one if you want, Kady."

"No thanks, Bubby." Unlike her brother, Kady had trouble staying focused on one book for long, she'd rather be drawing the characters than reading about them. It constantly frustrated their grandmother that Kady wouldn't sit still long enough to make it through _Wizard of Oz_ , but she seemed pleased enough when Kady was able to assist her in making a complicated chili recipe without much trouble. "Hey, did you have a weird dream last night?"

"No, but I did hear August playing the piano at a God awful hour." He passes Kady another few books before kicking the box off to the side and plopping down in his rolling desk chair, moving his laptop closer to him. Kady frowns, trying to remember if she'd heard the piano last night, but drawing a blank. "Are you sleepwalking again, Kady?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should start locking my door again."

"It's probably just from the stress of the move, no need to overreact." He pulls up iTunes and soon Fall Out Boy is playing just loud enough for the teens to hear, but not loud enough to have August yell at them. "Have you tried getting on the internet today?"

"No, I've been working on my shoes." He nods, hazel eyes focused on his computer screen as Kady goes back to putting up the books in their proper places. She hesitates when she finds _Anna Karenina_ , wondering if she could borrow it long enough to remember what Anna looked like so she could add another sketch to her portfolio.

Suddenly, Milo lets out a horrified scream and the book slips out of Kady's fingers as she rushes to his side.


	4. Mysterious Keys & Hannibal Lector

"What's wrong, are you okay," August shouts as he sprints into the room with Emy right behind him, not stopping until he was kneeling in front of Milo. "Why are you screaming? What's wrong, Milo?" Milo stared at August with wide eyes, looking completely horrified as he pointed at his computer. Kady moves closer to get a look at what had Milo in shock and then slaps the back of his head for making her so scared. "What the hell are you doing?"

"He's freaking out because he doesn't have WiFi here," Kady snaps, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" August was angry now, eyes darkening as he rests his harsh glare on Milo. "You screamed because I don't have the internet up and running yet?"

"No," Milo scowls," I screamed 'cause I saw a creepy chick reflected in my screen." August's brow furrows and he stands quickly, taking a look under the bed, in the bathroom, and behind the bedroom door. "Didn't you see her, Kady?" Kady shakes her head, feeling uneasy that someone had been in the room without either of them knowing until Milo caught sight of her in his laptop screen.

"She couldn't have run out without me or Emy seeing her, Milo."

"I guess I was seeing things. Sorry for scaring you guys." Instinctively, Kady reaches out and gives her older brother's shoulder a squeeze.

"Maybe you should get some sleep, Bub, you look tired." Milo nods and watches as August and Emy walk back downstairs, the adults talking quietly. Milo had that look he usually got when he was brushed aside by August, like a puppy whose owner had just kicked it. It tore Kady apart to see that expression and she tried to think of something to get his mind off the experience.

"Hey," she says after a moment," how about we play Indiana Jones?"

"What," Milo asks, drawing himself out of his thoughts to stare incredulously at his sister. "We haven't played that since we were kids."

"Which is exactly why we should do it now!"

"No, I just want to smoke some pot and take a nap." He shakes his head, resisting even as Kady grabs one of his wrists and tries to tug him to his feet. "Kady, just leave me alone."

"Nope, you always get paranoid when you're high, so we're going to explore outside while Dad flirts with the new maid." He throws his head back, staring up at the ceiling for a few seconds, wanting to bug Kady before standing and nudging her towards the door.

"Put on warmer clothes and meet me outside, Kady-bug." He couldn't help a smile when he sees her sprinting down the hall to her room before he shut his door, moving over to the wardrobe to pull out some clothes. Even though she was only a year younger than him, Milo still thought of Kady as his baby sister and would chose her over anyone else any day. Milo dresses quickly, shedding his house colors in exchange for black sweats, a black sweater with 'Fries Music Netflix Wattpad Music' printed on it in white, a red beanie, sunglasses, and a beaded lion bracelet on his right wrist while his watch went on his left one.

Once that was done, he grabbed his camera and started downstairs where a little girl was playing in the front hall with a Barbie and stuffed dragon. "Do you think flattery will keep you alive, Burglar," she inquires in a deep voice, making the dragon bounce a little. Milo smiles down at her, bringing up his camera to snap a quick picture. It's not every day you find a kid that could quote Smaug with no problem. The flash of the camera has her huge brown eyes widening further as she stares up at him.

"Hey, kiddo, what'cha playing?" He kneels down in front of her, picking up the little Poly Pocket that was lying near his foot.

"Hobbit," she whispers shyly, dark hair hiding her face from view.

"Hobbit, huh? That was my favorite book when I was little, I had it memorized by the time I was ten."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh, my mother used to read it to me before I went to sleep, she did all the voices and everything." The little girl meets his gaze again, and takes the doll from him when he holds it out to her. "What's your name?"

"Amy."

"I'm Milo." Both of them look up when they hear footsteps on the stairs, finding Kady practically skipping down them if such a thing were possible. She flashes Amy a bright smile when she gets to the first floor, holding out a hand to help Milo up. "Have you met Amy yet?"

"This morning," Kady nods, but Amy was already hiding behind her hair again. "You ready, Milo?"

"I'm ready when you are." Giggling, Kady pulls him after her out the door and into the bright afternoon sunlight. He was blinded for a moment even with his sunglasses on, forcing Kady to stop until his eyes adjusted. The last thing he needed was to break his ass trying to go down the iced over stairs. When he could see again, he looked over at his sister to ensure she was actually dressed warmly.

She had changed into a dark red sweater, jeans, a pair of bright pink Converse with butterflies drawn on the toes, her bright red coat, black scarf, and sunglasses; her hair was loose and hung down almost to her waist in soft waves, her face was oval-shaped, her nose thin and turned up just the smallest bit, and her mouth was small. "Come on, Bubby!" She was already in the front yard, giggling again as she walked backwards a short ways.

As annoyed as he was that Kady wouldn't let him angst in his room, Milo couldn't deny that he'd missed playing the games they had deemed childish when he was ten and she was nine. Indiana Jones basically meant they would go exploring as they had in every house they'd ever lived in, and Allerdale Hall was the biggest by far. "Don't get too far ahead!"

"Slow poke!"

Milo rolls his eyes, but speeds up a little as he walks behind his sister. The lands surrounding their new home were sprawling for lack of a better word, it seemed like an endless expanse of white with soft rolling hills beneath his feet. Some of the snow drifts nearly reached his waist and he was starting to think he should've worn his snow camo to stay warm. A few yards from the house and nearly hidden was a crumbling stables where horses and carriages would have been kept once upon a time. While Kady was running towards the skeleton trees, Milo started towards the stables on the right, stopping a few feet away and eyeing the run-down, decaying wood warily.

Would it come apart while he was rooting around inside; crush him and muffle his cries for help? His old fear of being buried alive came to the forefront of his mind, the nightmares of a transparent coffin with dirt sprinkled on top making his breath hitch in his throat. His hands started to shake the longer he studied the failing structure, imagining being half-frozen in the snow with a crushing weight pressing him down.

_Would Kady notice or would she be too far away to hear?_

Could he shovel his way out if it collapsed on top of him or would he be knocked unconscious? His thoughts raced wildly and tears spilled down his cheeks as terror consumed him. He wanted nothing more than to run back into the house and curl up in August's lap like when he did as a child, but he was frozen in place. His sole focus was the stables, that terrible smell of damp wood almost making him gag when it reaches him. That's why he jumped so high when he felt something cold collide with the back of his head, his first thought being that the structure really was collapsing until his mind registered the giggle behind him.

He turns quickly, locking his gaze on his baby sister. She was a good five feet away from him and snow was beginning to melt on her palms. _Snowball_. When he didn't react by throwing one in return, a crease formed between her brows and she came quickly to his side. "You wanna talk about it?" _Did she somehow know where his thoughts had taken him?_ "I mean, it couldn't be just stress making you see things since we've moved houses about six times since we were born." _The woman in the computer screen, of course_. Milo shakes the morbid thoughts of burial out of his head and offers Kady a smile.

"I'm sure it was nothing, Kady-bug." He could see the wheels in her head turning and knew she wouldn't let the subject drop until he distracted her. "Let's go see if there's any treasure in here." As much as he hated the idea, he pointed at the stables using his thumb. Kady stares at him for a moment, torn between questioning Milo further or letting him have a respite, then she shrugs and walks inside the stables.

The inside of the stables was as nasty as the outside, the smell of decay more pronounced and bits of moldy hay filling the stalls. Clearly someone had made a home here at one point if the old candy wrappers were any indication, and one of the back walls were scorched from a fire that had gotten too large. Most of the stalls had already collapsed and lay in hazardous piles on the ground and one of the side walls had caved in; in fact, the stables seemed barely upright, and even swayed with the hard winds.

Milo breathes in deeply, closing his eyes and thinking of happy things like puppies as he exhales slowly, trying desperately to calm himself. "Hey, I think I found something!" He opens his eyes at his sister's words, finding her kneeling beside the collapsed wall and looking at something beneath it. "Help me move this."

"No chance in hell," Milo snaps, walking over and jerking her upright and away from the wood. He could still make out rusty nails sticking out of it and didn't really want to listen to a lecture from August that he'd get if Kady needed a Tetanus shot. "Let's go explore somewhere else."

"What? But you're the one that wanted to come in here in the first place!"

"I changed my mind, now come on!" He turned to head back outside, but paused when he heard the creaking of the wood and a gasp behind him. "Goddamn it, Kadence!" He turned with a glare in his sister's direction, clenching his jaw when he spotted her back on the ground and trying to move the wall. With an angry sigh, Milo again joins her, but this time he jerks the wall up a few feet. Kady scowls up at him, but jams her arm into the small opening, feeling around for whatever caught her interest, the very tip of her tongue coming out as she focused on the task.

The wood was heavier than he had thought it would be, the damp seeming to make it heavier and his back was beginning to ache from the weight of it. "Got it!" Kady moved her arm out of the gap right as the wall split and fell back into the snow, crushing the spot where her arm had been seconds prior. Milo and Kady look at spot in shock, Milo still tightly clutching the bit of wood that had broken off in his hands. "Oh, that could've been bad."

"Ya think, Einstein!" She scowls at him again, standing up and brushing some snow off the knees of her pants. "What was worth a broken arm?" She opens her hand and they bend their heads together to examine the object closely. It was an old-fashioned bronze key that fit snugly in Kady's hand, the top of it made to look like a toothed wheel with smaller gears on top of it, layered intricately, and there were two gears a few inches below that on the shaft and one in the center of the bit. There was a silver chain threaded through the biggest gear and Milo used that to snatch the key out of Kady's hand.

It was the type of key you'd see in a movie like Cinderella, used to lock up trunks or castle doors and held by the owner of the house. The thing Milo was wondering was why it would be all the way out here instead of in the house. "What's that thing, Bubby?" Kady wasn't even interested in the key anymore, and Milo followed where she was pointing until he spotted something sticking up out of the snow a few feet away from the house. He couldn't fathom how it had caught his sister's attention, but it gave him an excuse to get out of the stables without telling Kady about the phobia he thought he'd left behind in prepubescence.

"I guess we should go find out." But Kady was already running towards it before Milo could finish his sentence and he was left to follow in her dust, tucking the key away in the pocket of his sweats. When he reached her, Kady had already pushed most of the snow off the thing, revealing a lump of old metals all melted together. "What do you think?"

"I think our house used to belong to a mad scientist."

"They was crazy," a high voice called to them, drawing the siblings' gazes to where Amy was standing with her dragon clutched tightly to her chest. "The man built lots of stuff out of metal and his sister murdered little kids so they could have supper." At this point, Milo wasn't above believing that his ancestors had been the type to eat children and drink the blood of innocents to survive. _It'd seal the deal if this was a gingerbread house_. "Mister August said he wanted Kady to make food now." It wasn't until Milo looked at his watch that he saw it was nearly dinner time.

"Tell him I'll start it after I get cleaned up." Amy gives a quick nod before turning and running back inside, slamming the front door shut behind her. "Do you really think Amy was telling the truth?"

"That our ancestors were cannibals way back when," Milo asks, only half-joking," Nah." _Last thing I need is her having nightmares about Hannibal Lector again_.

* * *

Later that night, Milo was immensely grateful for the soft bed in his room as he fell back onto it, kicking off his shoes. After dinner, he and Kady were charged with rearranging the furniture in the parlor so that it would mirror their old game room back in the States. August had busied himself with dishes, Amy had been sent to her room for a bath, and Emy was packing up the leftover Alfredo from dinner. Despite hating the chore with a burning passion, he and Kady knew it would earn them no brownie points if they argued, so they had disappeared into the parlor and began the job.

At first, they tried to make it a game to see who could move the heaviest piece of furniture—an old oak cabinet meant to hold video games and DVDs—the farthest, but then the exhaustion caught up with them and they just tried to keep each other awake. It took them both three hours just to get the cabinet against the far wall and the leather sectional across from the TV, but not so close that their Wii Fit board couldn't fit comfortably in the space. The real work would be tomorrow when they were expected to move in the other stuff—pool table, air hockey table, putting in shelves to hold pool cues, and then hooking up the flat screen that weighed more than he and Kady combined.

He hurt everywhere and the constant cold of the house only served to make it worse, he didn't even feel up to changing into his PJ's, let alone taking a bath to wash off the sweat and grime. _I'll do that in the morning_. He lets out a sigh, his relaxing muscles making him ache further as he laid over the plush comforter beneath him. He was almost asleep when he felt the end of his bed dip down under someone, his first thought being that Kady was too cold to sleep by herself.

"Can I help you," he asks without opening his eyes, expecting the answer to be Kady curling up next to him. Instead he heard a woman's voice, the hard tone sending shivers down his spine.

"You can, actually," the woman replied, her lilting accent making him think of Irene Adler. He cracks his eyes open, finding the woman at the end of his bed to be a complete stranger. She was tall and sat so straight that he almost asked if she had a stick up her ass, her dark brown hair was done up in a severe bun, and her cheekbones could be classified as a dangerous weapon. Then his eyes traveled downward to her attire: a high-collared dress in a blood-red shade that only served to make her appear paler than the bone white she already was.

"You're the woman from earlier…" _She was in my room and I didn't even realize it until I saw her reflection in my computer screen. Is she a ghost? Should I call Ghostbusters or an exorcist?_ "What the hell do you want with me?"

"I want you to assist me in getting a little revenge." She gave him a horrible smile, full of dark promise that sent his stomach to twisting. Part of him distantly realized that he was feeling aroused, but most of his thoughts revolved around how off this woman felt. It was like his rational mind was rebelling against her presence screaming ' _Not human, not human!_ '

"And I want you to get the fuck out of my room." Her expression darkens, if that was possible, and Milo began to rethink his choice of words. _Is there a polite way to tell a ghost to fuck off or should I just be blunt again?_

"You shouldn't spurn me, Milo," she murmurs, her lips feeling like velvet against his ear. "Not when I'm stronger than I have been in years." And then she was gone and Milo was left staring at the stop she'd occupied, colder than he had been when he first went to sleep.

_Did I just get propositioned by a ghost hooker?_


	5. Squeaking Floorboards & Crimson Shadows

Kady missed a lot of things she had before the move to England—the leaves that were still in all shades of Autumn, a heater that actually worked, internet access, but most of all she missed a house that was quiet when she was trying to sleep. At her old house, there were no creaks and groans that she didn't know by heart; hell, she could be sitting in the downstairs game room and tell you that the creaking upstairs was just their lopsided washer. But Allerdale Hall had noises all its own and she was ready to strangle August for making them move here.

There were mice on the third floor that kept scurrying up and down the halls, the pipes in the kitchen would protest loudly whenever she tried to use the sink, the house seemed to groan whenever the wind picked up, and there was some kind of animal in the room next to hers that paced all damn night! She was losing what little sanity she had left, and she was one squeak away from going next door and strangling the woodland creature her damn self.

Growling, she rolls onto her side and presses her pillow against her ear to drown out the sounds, glaring at the wall her bed was set against as though the wall was personally responsible for her suffering. "One more sound," she grumbles irritably," just one more and I'm going to punch something." It went blissfully quiet for a moment, like the house had heard her and was complying, and Kady allowed her eyes to close.

 _Squeak_.

Kady throws her covers off her and quickly pulls on her shoes before stalking out of her room and pushing the door to the room next door wide open, her fear of the Boogeyman clouded by the annoyed rage that was boiling in her veins. What she found on the other side of the door had that fear doubling in size, freezing her in place as she stared at the _thing_ that had been pacing until the door opened.

It—a man, she realized after a second—was standing stock still in the middle of the room, his head turned in her direction with surprise evident on his face. Everything about the man was white except for the black of his hair, one of his eyes, and a gash directly below it, the eye filled with blood and the gash leaking a crimson vapor that curled in the air. _Dream guy_.

"Who—?"

But he was gone before she could even get the word completely out, and the room seemed colder than it had been when she flung the door open. She was still frozen a minute later when it dawned on her that she wasn't hallucinating, that the squeaking of floorboards had stopped the moment the man had gone still.

In a daze, Kady shuts the door and takes a few healthy steps away from it until she felt the wood of the banister pressing against her lower back. _We really do have ghosts. Do they have ghost exterminators or should I call those Warren people that handle stuff like this?_ She was terrified, shaking all over as she tried to process what she had seen. _Am I dreaming again?_ A quick, not to mention painful, pinch on her arm dismissed that theory and really cemented the fact that she had seen a ghost. Heart beating fast in her chest, Kady ran back into her room and locked the door behind her before diving into bed.

"Covers protect me," she whispers over and over, pulling her blankets over her head and curling up in a ball. Her mother had taught her that when she was little, that monsters couldn't find you once you were under the covers because they work as camouflage. "Covers protect me, covers protect me." _But will they protect me from Hannibal Lector's ghost?_

* * *

Milo didn't want to wake up the next morning, not when every inch of his body was sore from getting most of the parlor set up the night before. He felt like he hadn't had more than two hours of sleep, which might have been accurate considering he had such a hard time last night. It seemed he'd see that ghost's malicious smile every time he closed his eyes and he'd shoot up in bed expecting her to still be leaning over him.

He lets out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair and causing it to stand up more than it usually did. Maybe August would let him take it easy if Milo promised to work even harder tomorrow? He could only hope, but he had very little of it as he moved into the bathroom for a shower. _Maybe the hot water will help ease the soreness in my muscles_. He hasn't felt this sore since his first swim practice, but he knew the only way to ease it is to work through it.

As the water was heating up, he walks over to the sink and starts brushing his teeth, eyes trained on his reflection. That's why he saw it, the way the steam from the hot water seemed to part and swirl around empty air the way it would if a human passed through it. "I'm just seeing things," he mutters, staring hard into the basin of the sink as he finishes what he's doing. All the same, he turns slowly and looks around him for any other sign that someone was in the bathroom with him before shutting the door and undressing.

Normally he'd only wear boxers and a pair of sweats to bed, but that was impossible here since the house feels like a freezer. He quickly stepped under the warm spray of water, letting out a sigh of relief as he left the frigid air behind him and his body slowly began to relax. Knowing August would expect him downstairs for a family breakfast soon, Milo washes as quickly as he can before rinsing off and getting out.

The air seemed colder than usual, but he put that down to his wet body and grabbed his towel to dry off, using it on his hair first since his hair is his pride and joy. He was slow when it came to drying everything else, muscles protesting his movements and the arm he broke in sixth grade throbbing because of the cold. He tried to push it all to the back of his mind, going on autopilot to get himself dressed in clothes that would ensure he stayed moderately warm but could move easily.

He pulls on a pair of dark jeans that hung low on his hips, his deodorant, a dark blue tee with an unbuttoned dark blue flannel shirt over that, thick socks, his usual Sneakers, a belt to keep August from giving him the disapproved parent stare, his watch, and a braided cord bracelet that featured two faux silver skulls biting a metal oval. To complete his morning routine, he turns back to the mirror to style his hair and slip on his beanie, but what he finds waiting for him has him shaking from more than just the cold. There were three words written on the steamed up glass, the script elegant and tilted slightly, fading as the steam dispersed, but he could still read them clearly.

_Beware Crimson Peak_.

Milo stays in there long enough to grab his comb, beanie, and hair gel before bolting out of the bathroom and down the hall to Kady's room where music was playing quietly from the iPod on her desk. Kady was seated next to the iPod, knees drawn nearly to her chest, and she was writing something with an old fashioned fountain pen. Milo moves over to her, tossing her laptop on her rumpled covers before seating himself in her chair and propping his feet up on the desk.

They were quiet for a moment, Kady's eyes trained on the sketchpad and Milo's eyes on her face. She was tense, her brows knitted together, but he couldn't tell if it was from wanting whatever she was writing to be perfect of if she was as scared as he was. _Has she experienced anything?_ But he didn't know how to breach the subject and he didn't want to scare her if she hadn't seen anything. After a moment, Milo stands and hops up on the desk next to her, leaning over to see what she was so focused on.

_Calligraphy practice,_ he realized, taking in the detailed, swirling handwriting, _I forgot she'd been taking classes before we moved_. Then he really focused on what she had written, it was a saying from American Horror Story that she'd been fond of, but it only made his stomach clench. ' _Close your eyes and remember everything is going to be okay_.'

"Have you seen her, too," he whispers, voice barely heard over the sound of the classical music Kady had playing. Slowly and carefully, Kady lifts the fountain pen from the paper and screws the lid on it, and it's only then that Milo realizes that the pen was gold— _real_ gold—instead of the blue and metal one August had given her when she'd started her classes. "Where'd you get that pen, Kady-bug?"

"I found it on my desk this morning," she whispers back. She was ashen and there was a tremor in her hands as she hands the pen off to him. He studies it closely, noticing flakes of russet clinging to the gold near the lid. "I think _he_ gave it to me as an apology for keeping me awake at night."

"August?"

"No, th-the other man…. The dead one." The song changes, the tune upbeat and he recognizes it as one from Glee. "Is there a woman here, too? Did you see a woman ghost?" He nods, still staring down at the pen, turning it over and over in his hands until something caught his attention. There was a word etched into one of the sides, barely visible, but it seemed to flash slightly from the light shining into the room. _Edith_.

"Didn't we have a grandmother named Edith?"

"Uh, yeah, she was crazy so Gram put her in a home until she died. I think we were six and seven when she finally passed away."

"But didn't she always go on and on about a book she'd lost in England?"

"Uh-huh, but she was off her rocker."

"Guys," August calls, cutting off Milo when he walks into Kady's room. "Come on, it's time to get moving." Milo sets the pen down on the desk and hops down, walking to Kady's bathroom to fix his hair, still processing everything. "Geez, Kady, I bought you a chair for a reason."

"I sit in front of a desk for eight hours a day when I'm in school, Dad." The music cut off and their voices faded as they left Kady's room. Milo was still thinking about Edith, trying hard to remember anything about her that didn't involve her crazed ramblings. _What was her last name? McMichael or something like that_. He shakes his head a little, sliding his beanie on and walking downstairs to the kitchen where everyone had gathered in anticipation of whatever Kady was making.

"Are you feeling okay, Bub?"

"Fine," he mumbles, making a point to sit between August and Emy.

When he looks up from his empty plate, intending to ask about Edith, he freezes in place and stares behind his dad with widened eyes. The woman was there, basically just a shadow that seemed to melt against August's side, but the red accents of her dress stood out from the darkness surrounding her.

"Maybe you should take it easy today, just get some rest."

"Yeah, maybe I should."


	6. Ghost in the Elevator

Milo had high hopes that he'd be able to sleep tonight since he'd been given a break that day; a free pass to laze around is a rare thing to get from August when there was work to do. Milo had taken full advantage of it and spent some time outside—well away from the stables—and explored the woods a little more now that he had a chance. The trees were all bare, reminding him of skeletons as they rose high above his head. It was like they were trying to reach the leaden skies, trying to get away from the desolate house just yards away.

The rest of the day, between meals, he sipped on the tea Emy had made earlier and caught up on his reading, finishing half of _Carolina Moon_ before bed. Kady had spent most of the day with him after she got the video games and movies organized, both of them listening to music as Milo read and Kady wrote with her new pen—just writing down random words in different fonts or designs. After a while, Amy joined them with her dolls and they all played out a scene with them from Star Trek.

And now Milo was lying on his back with his hands under his head, staring up at the canopy over his bed, able to make out the Hercules constellation picked out in silver thread just a few inches above Canis Minor. Knowing he wouldn't be sleeping any time soon, Milo stands and decides to go to the game room to play some Assassin's Creed. He quickly pulled on some shoes and a light jacket before leaving his room.

"I'm sorry…." The whispered words caught his attention and he turned his gaze towards Kady's room. Instead of another ghost like he'd been expecting, he found Kady stumbling down the hall, eyes half-opened and one hand outstretched like she was being pulled along. He just stared for a moment in confusion, watching his sister shuffle closer and closer to him. He was almost certain she was coming to his room until she turned suddenly and faced the empty space where the elevator should have been. "Okay, I'll come with you."

Feeling sick to his stomach, Milo sprints down the hall and wraps his arms around her, lifting her off the ground and hauling her backwards away from the empty space. They hit the ground hard, the impact making his arm ache even worse and forcing Kady into wakefulness.

"Are you okay," he gasps, staring down at her. In that moment, all he could see was the scared little girl he remembered from childhood, all big eyes and trembling lips as she fought to be brave.

"It was her," she says, beginning to cry," she said she was taking me to the mines to make sure everything was still working." A surge of protectiveness runs through him and he holds Kady tightly to him, rocking a little and smoothing down the back of her hair.

"Shh," he soothes," I've got you now, Kady-bug, and that bitch will never lay another hand on you."

"I'm scared, Bubby."

"I know, but I won't ever let them hurt you again." He holds her tighter, letting out a relieved breath. He almost hadn't caught her in time, he'd almost seen his sister die, and that was enough to have him crying against her shoulder in the same manner she was doing to him. A creaking noise made them both tense, watching from their spot on the floor as the cables holding the elevator begin to strain against the heavy weight and shake slightly as the noise grew louder and louder.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know." He stands quickly, pulling his sister up after him and angling them so that he was standing half in front of her as the top of the elevator becomes visible. "Jesus Christ." He could feel Kady's nails digging into his skin as she clung to his arm, both of them shaking and watching in horrified astonishment as the elevator continues to rise. It's only when he sees the head of dark hair inside the elevator that he slings Kady over his shoulder and sprints down the stairs, nearly falling a few times when his ankle tried to give out, but he didn't stop until he was in the parlor.

"Will we be safe in here?"

"We'll find out," Milo replies, setting Kady down on the couch before moving to the doorway and peeking out. From the parlor, he could barely make out the front hall and the elevator, now dangling a few feet above the second floor, but there was no one in there anymore. Still breathing hard and wide awake now, he slides the glass doors closed, locking them and drawing the curtains in case _she_ decided to pay them a visit.

"Wanna play Yahtzee?" Milo lets out a surprised laugh, looking incredulously at his sister as she moves across the room to get the dice and scoring pad. "I don't want to think about what just happened and what better way to distract myself than to remind my big brother how sucky he is at this game?"

"Fine, but I'll have to remind you that I'm superior at Assassin's Creed." She gives him a half-smile, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the low coffee table while Milo retrieved a calculator and two pencils before joining her on the opposite side of the table. When Estelle first got sick, the three of them would play Yahtzee to take their minds off things, so this was like a little tribute to their mother's memory.

"You got yourself a deal, Milo."

* * *

August prided himself on that fact that not a lot of things could shock him—hell, he's been shot before and he wasn't shocked since that was almost expected in his line of work—but the sight he found the next morning left him totally baffled. Not only was the elevator on the second floor, but the doors to the parlor-turned-game room were shut and locked.

"Is everything alright," Emy asks, walking out of the room they'd shared the night before.

"I don't know," he answers honestly, brows furrowed as he continues to stare at the closed doors.

"Is there a reason we're standing here?"

"I left these doors open last night after I moved in the pinball machine." He scratched the back of his head, trying to remember the events of the night before. "Babe, will you go get my keys off the dresser?"

"Sure." He watches her reflection in the glass of the doors, eyes focused on her swaying hips until she disappeared around the corner. He shakes his head, reaching out a hand to jiggle one of the faux-gold handles and frowning when they still won't push down and allow him entrance. "Here you go." He jumped at Emy's voice, not having heard her approach.

"Thanks." He picks the right key and inserts it in the lock before sliding the doors open and stepping inside. The white splatter-painted curtains were drawn over the large windows, but he was able to make out his kids slumped against each other on the floor, their backs against the couch. The TV mounted on the wall across from them still showed the menu screen for Home Alone and a finished game of Yahtzee was scattered across the coffee table.

"Did we miss a party last night?"

"I guess so."

"Do me a favor, honey?" He looks down at her, feeling his face heat up when she entwines their fingers. "Don't slip into cop mode and berate them for this. They probably just wanted to spend the quiet time together without one of us yelling at them to do some work."

"It's not like I'm a slave driver."

"You haven't exactly taken it easy on them either, August. Believe it or not, they're still children and you haven't spent much time with them since you got here, so take the day off and do whatever they want to do. Me and Amy can spend the day in town together; Kady has a grocery list anyway, so we'll do some shopping. Just…. Show them you're still their dad and maybe tell them about us so we can drop the whole 'hired help' façade before Amy blows it."

"I guess I can do that."

"I'll go and get Amy ready and you go decide what to do until they wake up." She pats his chest, allowing him a chaste kiss before she heads back the way she came, making a slight detour for Amy's room. It had been hard for him to move on from Estelle, but Emy was really helping him and he was hoping his kids would accept her as more than the maid. Heaving a sigh, he shuts the doors again and goes back to his room to change out of his pajamas.

Instead of his usual button down and khakis, August decided on a gray shirt with sleeves that stopped at his elbows, jeans, the watch Estelle gave him on the last Christmas they'd spent together, work boots, and the beaded lion bracelet that was nearly an exact copy of his son's apart from the coloring—August's was made to resemble amber while Milo's was more akin to marble.

Once dressed, he moves towards the entrance hall where the thermostat was located, slapping it a few times and fiddling with the buttons until he heard the heater kick on for the first time in three days. _Maybe now it'll warm up in here_. Amy's quiet voice meets his ears seconds before she comes into the entryway with Emy following behind her. "Okay, we'll be back around dinner time," Emy sighs, giving August a hug and a quick kiss before taking Amy's hand and leading her to the front doors.

"Have fun, girls," he calls after them, grinning when Amy smiles at him over her shoulder. She was a sweet girl, but she was shy and August wasn't sure how to handle shy children since both of his could have walked into a room filled with strangers and leave with a room filled with friends. All the same, Amy was slowly opening up to him and even curled up in his lap last night. Still smiling, August heads towards the parlor and only hesitates outside the doors when he swore he felt someone pressing against his back, but he shakes that feeling off.

After all, there was no one else in the house now apart from him and his children, and there was no such thing as ghosts.

* * *

Kady lets out a soft whimper, wondering why her bed was so hard and why every part of her was aching like she'd slept on concrete. Slowly, her eyes flutter open and she stares around in confusion until the events of last night came back in one terrible wave that hit her hard. She jumps up, looking for any sign of the female ghost, but finds that she and Milo are still alone in the parlor. She also found out why she hurt so badly, they'd both fallen asleep on the floor while marathoning the Home Alone movies.

Her heartrate slowing back to normal, she lets out a relieved breath and nudges Milo until her brother was cursing, but awake. "The fuck, Kady?"

"Get up already, I don't want Dad to bite our heads off because we slept past nine." That had Milo standing as quickly as he could, which wasn't fast since he had to be hurting as much as she did. "God, I need a bath or some p—"

"Morning, guys," August grins as he slides the parlor doors open. Milo and Kady let out loud groans when sunlight hits them, shielding their eyes with their arms. "Come on, my little vampires, run upstairs and get dressed, and then we're gonna have a family day."

"There will be no running involved." August laughs softly as they shuffle past and Kady could still feel him watching them as they start up the stairs. On the second floor landing, Milo and Kady pause and swallow hard, staring at the elevator that was dangling two feet off the floor. "It wasn't a nightmare," Kady murmurs, biting her lip.

"No," Milo whispers back," but I won't let anything happen to you." He gives her shoulder a squeeze, walking her down the hall to her room. Kady goes straight for the wardrobe digging out her favorite dress despite the cold, and fresh underwear. "I'll get you some pot later tonight, but you'll have to keep the window open to avoid August's snooping attempts."

"Thanks, Bubby."

"No problem. If you need anything, just scream and I'll come running even if August doesn't." She gives him a nod, waiting for the door to close behind him before she moves into the bathroom, being sure to close and lock that door as well. She sets her clothes down on the back of the toilet before plugging the drain and starting the water as hot as she can handle it. While the tub was filling up, she pulled her pajamas off and moved to the sink to brush her teeth. She was used to the cold by now and the bathroom door was firmly shut, so she didn't care about walking around the bathroom in her birthday suit. _Maybe the ghosts will see me and then run away in terror_.

"Hurry up, kids," August yells from downstairs," I have a surprise for you both!" Knowing August is as impatient as herself, Kady bathes and dresses as quickly as she can, still pulling on her pale blue Converse on the way down the hall where she met Milo doing almost the same thing, his hair sticking out since he hadn't had the chance to style it.

"Don't touch my kitchen," Kady shouts," last time you cooked, you nearly burned our house to the ground!" She and Milo skid to a stop inside the kitchen, finding August leaning against the wall and smiling at them. "Okay, that smile's getting a little bit creepy."

"Yeah," Milo agrees," it's like the smile Pennywise gave before he ripped Georgie's arm off." August makes a face at that, but doesn't comment. "Why are you in such a hurry this morning?"

"Did we do something you don't approve of?"

"Well, now that you mention it," August admits," which one of you decided it would be fun to ride in the elevator last night?" Milo pales at his words and Kady distracts herself by looking for one of the baking pans. "Come on, you're not going to get in trouble over it."

"Must be the messed up wiring." Kady's hands were shaking as she dug through the lower cabinet where she stored her pans, her heart beating so loudly that she was surprised no one else could hear it. "I heard it moving last night, but blamed it on the pipes."

"Honey, you don't have to be afraid to tell me the truth. Were you sleepwalking again and accidentally got on the elevator?"

"What? No, I told you what happened. I was in Milo's room because it was too cold in mine and we both heard it." August lets out a disappointed sigh, shaking his head and pinning Kady in place with his stare when she made the mistake of looking his way. _Would he believe me if I told him the truth?_ The answer was easy and came quickly to her mind—hell no. He'd probably send her to a therapist or claim it was a hallucination from playing on her phone all the time.

"I did it," Milo says quickly, drawing their father's gaze. "I came downstairs for some water and I was afraid that I would fall down the stairs since I was barely awake. I should've told you sooner and I apologize, sir."

"Thank you for telling the truth, Milo." August claps Milo on the shoulder, nodding approvingly as he continued to speak. "Another thing I'm curious about, why were the two of you camped out in the parlor?" This time it was Kady that spoke up upon noticing the deer in the headlights look her brother sent her way.

"Cleaning party," she blurts out," we noticed how dusty it was and wanted to surprise you." Milo nods quickly, offering a nervous smile. "I don't think Emy's even tried cleaning in there, but I'm pretty sure we made more of a mess during our breaks."

"Don't worry about it, all you have to do today is have fun. I'm calling a family day, so what do you guys want to do first?" _Talk about the fact that we're being haunted and admit Milo never took the elevator. They're both fine choices in my opinion_.

"I'd like to find out why Emy felt the need to rearrange my pans. They were perfect the way they were and now my system is completely destroyed."

"Emy hasn't touched your pans, Kady. Maybe you did it when you were cooking yesterday."

_Or maybe the resident bitch of a ghost moved them to piss me off_.


	7. Possessions & Poisonings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know, Chicken Foot is a game that uses dominoes where you start with the domino marked 1 and branch off from there with the dominoes shaped like a chicken's foot at the end. The person with the fewest points at the end is the winner. The book I quote is The Princess Bride and Buttercup says it to Westley before he leaves.

It was late when Emy and Amy returned to Allerdale Hall, weighed down by numerous bags, but giggling all the same. The noise gained Kady's attention, and she looked up from the game of Chicken Foot she was losing. It was already dark outside despite it only being around five o'clock and they had a fire going in the massive fireplace across the room. Unlike the family days in the past, August had actually seemed interested in letting Kady and Milo pick the activities, and they had spent nearly three hours playing Candyland.

Kady would admit that it had been nice spending time with her father without hefting boxes around or rearranging furniture, and she had decided that they could all watch a movie after Milo won at Chicken Foot. He was the best at this game and she would've accused him of cheating, but Milo was famous for throwing the dominoes when his honor was challenged. "You're turn, sweetheart," August says, tapping her hand with one of his fingers. With a sigh, she looks from the dominoes spread out on the coffee table to the three she had left to use.

After a moment's debate, she picks up the double-sided four and sets it under the four of another domino, sending the boys a smug grin. "Chicken foot," she declares, giggling when August drops his head into his hands. Milo still looks confident, setting the four side of one of his dominoes under the one she'd just put down.

"Pass, I have no fours left." Kady had to pass as well and that only had Milo's ego swelling as he set another four down, and another until there was a shape of a chicken's foot. August takes a moment to study the dominoes, tapping one against his chin as he thinks about the moves he could make. "Alright, I guess this'll have to do." He sets down a domino, the five side of it pressed against another five side. "And I'm out."

It was only Milo and Kady left in the game and the siblings glared playfully at each other. They each had two dominoes left to use, and Kady was itching to get rid of the blank domino since it was worth the most when points were tallied up. "What's wrong, Kady," Milo taunts," no usable dominoes?"

"My dominoes are more useful than that beanie on your head," she shoots back, Milo playing at offense as he rests a hand on his beanie.

"That's below the belt."

"No, below the belt would be saying how surprised I am that it fits over your ginormous ego." Milo makes a face and August has tears in his eyes as he laughs at the jibe. Sending her brother a playful wink, she sets down the blank domino under another one.

"Don't you dare."

"Chicken foot." Milo's eyes narrow and he sets down another blank sided domino against her own. "And I'm out." She had no more dominoes she could use, so she pushed the domino she had left over to allow Milo to see the face of it. August quickly tallied up the scores, proclaiming Milo to be the winner with Kady surprisingly coming in second place. "Oh yeah," she shouts, jumping up with her arms raised triumphantly above her head," second place!"

"Tone it down a little," August instructs with a laugh, tugging on the edge of the pale blue dress Kady was wearing. She didn't care how cold it was in the house, she shaved her legs this morning and everyone had better appreciate her for it. "Hey, guys." Kady turns, finding Amy and Emy standing in the doorway of the parlor. Emy holding a silver tray weighed down by tea cups. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yes we did," Amy confirms, seating herself on the floor between August and Kady. "I got a new baby doll and Maman got a pretty dress for Christmas." Christmas was less than two weeks away and Kady hoped this year's wouldn't be as depressing as last year's had been. "Can we give them their presents early, Maman?"

"I don't see why not," Emy grins, setting the tray down on top of the scattered dominoes before leaving the room. Kady took one of the tea cups, sipping at the dark brown liquid inside and wincing at the taste. The look August sent her way told her not to say anything about the pour taste to Emy, so Kady took another reluctant sip before setting it down on the table. "Here we are."

Emy sits between Milo and August, digging out a small box wrapped in pale pink paper, handing it over to Kady before handing Milo a smaller box wrapped in blue paper, and August one wrapped in dark green. August's was the same size as Milo's and Kady watched as a ring on Emy's finger gleamed in the flickering firelight. It was a simple ring, made of silver with a modest diamond, but it was on her ring finger and that had Kady's stomach clenching.

"You first, Milo," August encourages. Milo, ever the unobservant, tears the paper away to reveal a black velvet box that creaked slightly when he opened it and pulled out a black ring. It was beautiful and looked the perfect size for one of his long thin fingers, the black of it only disturbed by the white lines cut through it to look like a Celtic design of a dragon.

"It's great," Milo says with a smile in Emy's direction, sliding the ring over his thumb and showing it for everyone to see. "Your turn, Kady-bug." Kady removes the paper and tosses it on the table before opening her slightly larger velvet box, finding a delicately made silver necklace inside of it, the chain long as she pulls it out and there were small diamonds set into the snowflake that dangled from the chain.

"Beautiful," she whispers, nodding her thanks as she slips the chain over her head, the snowflake resting just below the white collar of her dress. August went next and Kady watched in trepidation as he revealed a ring that was a masculine version of the ring Emy was wearing. _No_. The unspoken news hit her hard as August slid the ring onto his ring finger, the wedding band Estelle had bought him no longer there. "You married her."

It came out as an accusation, like she was condemning him as a criminal instead of a new husband. Emy looked from August to Kady and then to Milo, her dark eyes holding concern and confusion. Clearly she had expected August to have told the kids about their elopement, but he had kept them distracted with games and singing competitions.

"Is this some kind of joke," Milo asks, voice cracking at the end. August opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying and failing to come up with something to tell them while Emy just turned a dark shade of red from embarrassment. _Mom's barely been dead a year and he's already married again_. Kady could feel her throat tightening as she held back tears, standing up calmly and walking out of the room. She kept her back straight and her chin raised, she bit her lip to keep the tears back, and she didn't let any of them see just how much the news had hurt.

It was like there was something constricting her chest and she was finding it hard to breathe even as she began to go up the stairs, her pace measured. Estelle was supposed to be the love of his life, the only woman that ever mattered to him, so how could he get married to someone so different? Kady knew it was selfish that she didn't want her father to be with anyone else, but how was she supposed to feel when he was marrying a woman so much younger than himself? It felt like he traded in Estelle for a younger model. What was that quote she used to think of whenever she remembered her mother and father together?

_'I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm.'_

It was from the one book she took real pleasure in reading because her mother and father had read it to her and Milo on their anniversary every year, and they had done all of the voices. Whenever she pictured Buttercup and Westley, it was her parents that came to mind no matter how different they were to the descriptions in the book. Kady had always known her parents loved each other more than anything else in the world, so the news of her father's secret marriage had set her girlish dreams to crumbling.

Once she had her bedroom door firmly closed behind her, she crumpled to the ground, ignoring scraped knees and the blood staining the flesh of her hands as she beat them against the floor. In that moment, she was a little girl again, she wanted her mother to tell her everything would be fine and her father to scoop her up in his strong arms to make her giggle. But she knew it would never happen like that again, Estelle was dead and Kady was a big girl that was expected to console herself.

That's why it came as a surprise when her bedroom door opened and she felt warm arms surrounding her, pulling her back against a hard chest as she continued to cry. None of them had ever grieved Estelle's death properly and now it seemed all the emotions she had held back were rushing to the surface and she couldn't dam them up any longer. The tears left tracks on her flushed cheeks and her eyes were raw and red, her entire body was shaking from pure sadness, and she felt like she would never be that same completely happy person she had been before.

It seemed she cried for hours, gaining only a little comfort from the person holding her so tightly, like they could protect from all the horrors and angst that fueled the world. Finally, her throat sore and her tears drying on her face, she allowed her other senses to come back and she realized she wasn't being held by someone she knew. The chest was narrower than Milo's or August's, the arms too strong to belong to Milo yet not strong enough for her father, and she smelled the cloying, copper scent of blood.

"Who are you," she manages to whisper, voice hoarse after her crying.

"Thomas Sharpe," the man answers, the accent familiar to her. _The man that brought me back inside and tucked me in last week_. "You are my granddaughter, little one, and I shall do you no harm. I will keep you safe as I should have done Edith all those years ago." His voice was soft and low, reminding Kady of lullabies as she relaxed against him completely. "Close your eyes, Kadence, and allow yourself to dream. I will watch over you and ensure the safety of you and your brother."

And, despite the distant fear she held in her mind, she allowed herself to fall into a deep slumber and she dreamed of her mother.

* * *

Emy was the first to wake the next morning, donning her robe and slippers before making her way into the kitchen with a plan to cook breakfast for once. After the disaster of last night, she wanted to find a way, no matter how small, to try and get the children to like her. If they continued to refuse as they had last night, then August would leave and take his impressive fortune with him, leaving Emy and Amy with nothing again. She couldn't live like that again, not now that she has a house like this and a husband to dote on her.

"They'll just have to get used to me," she whispers to herself, going through the familiar motions of making tea.

"What if I had a better idea." It was a woman that spoke, her voice high and strong with such a seductive note that Emy found herself shivering. "What if you didn't need their approval, Emilia?" Emy lets out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, her eyes half-closed as she feels hands on her hips. Emy knew who it was immediately, she's known the woman since stumbling here half-dead three years ago after an abusive client had stabbed her and thrown her out of his car. Lucille Sharpe was sin, pure and simple, and Emy would gladly kill a thousand people if it meant being able to kiss her shoes—or better yet, the full, soft lips that were often drawn down into a pout.

"I'll do anything you wish."

"Such a dedicated lover." Emy let out a low moan when she felt Lucille's hands moving up to massage her breasts through her thin nightgown. "Don't you even want to know what it is?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Put arsenic in their tea, just a small amount so the children die slowly and painfully. It would delight me to watch _her_ descendants die as she was meant to." _Edith Cushing_ , Emy knew, _the woman that escaped death and started a family in Buffalo._ She left Allerdale Hall pregnant with the child of Thomas Sharpe, a healthy baby boy that had children of his own. Lucille wanted revenge against Edith and Thomas and that doctor that had fancied himself a hero, and what better way than by killing August's children and then possessing August to ensure the house doesn't start to decay again?

"Yes, my darling," Emy breathes, arching her back in pleasure and gripping the counter tightly. "Oh God, yes, whatever you wish."

"There's one more thing you must do, Emy, to avoid suspicion of poisoning." Lucille's velvet lips pressed against Emy's neck, biting lightly at the tender spot that nearly finished Emy right then and there. "You must kill your precious Amy as well."

"Consider it already done."

* * *

Milo was shuffling past his father's room when he heard something, a soft speaking too quiet for him to make out through the thick wooden door. Instead of continuing down the hall like a smart teen would have, he instead pressed his ear against the door and strained to make out what August was saying. _Is he talking to Emy?_ Milo shakes his head, remembering that he'd just seen Emy making her way upstairs to wake Kady up.

Amy was playing in the parlor and Milo knew August wasn't talking to him, so who the hell was on the other side of the door? Feeling brave, Milo cracks the door open just enough to peek inside, easily spotting August sitting in an armchair in front of the small fireplace, seemingly talking to thin air. It was like August saw someone Milo didn't, an invisible person that was talking right back and even over August if his random pauses were any indication.

It set Milo on edge since there was no one in there for August to be talking to unless it was one of the house's ghosts. Milo pushes the door open just enough to squeeze through, moving quietly towards his father and catching a flash of crimson that moved from his father's side to the deepest shadows in the room.

"Uh, did you say something, sir," Milo asks uncertainly, eyes flickering between August and the place the woman had disappeared in. When he got no response, Milo moves to stand in front of the chair.

August was just sitting there, back straight and his hands gripping the ends of the wooden arm rests tightly as he stared blankly ahead of him. It was like he was in some kind of trance, the type you see on TV where the person would get up and do whatever ridiculous things the magician told him to do. It was disconcerting, to say the least, to see a man as strong as August reduced to this. _How do I wake him up? Do I have to say abracadabra or some shit?_ His jaw set, Milo moves over to the shadows and reaches out, trying to grasp the silk fabric he could hear rustling faintly.

"Come out," he growls when he catches sight of the crimson dress again. "Get out here and fix my father before I go all Winchester on your ass, you skanky bitch!" He heard a low laugh, feminine and colder than Milo had ever heard a laugh be. "Grow a pair and show yourself!"

"You can't hurt me, Milo," the woman said simply. He couldn't pinpoint where she was in the room, the flickering light cast by the fire offering little assistance and her voice seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "I'm too strong now and I'll have your soul in my collection soon enough. You should go catch your father." The words were whispered in his ear, soft lips barely brushing against sensitive flesh. He lets out a shaky breath, running back over to August and barely catching him as he fell forward.

"What happened," August mutters, staring around in a daze. "How did I get over here? I was still in bed…."

"Well," Milo says as he helps August back into the chair," now we know where Kady gets the sleepwalking."

"I've never slept walked before, though."

"You were talking in your sleep, too. Maybe we should go stay in the village for a few days, you know, to get you a doctor's appointment and a much needed break for the rest of us." August furrows his brows and shakes his head, relaxing in the chair and speaking in a soft tone Milo rarely heard anymore.

"Nah, Emy said the roads were caked over in ice. We'll have to stay here until it melts…." And August was sound asleep again, snoring loudly with his chin resting against his chest. _By then Mrs. Lovett will probably be gnawing on whatever's left of our mutilated bodies_. Knowing August would just fall in the floor again if left in the chair, Milo hauls him up and half drags him over to the king-sized bed, grunting from the effort to get his father on the bed.

"Man, you're getting fat in your old age." Shaking his head, Milo leaves the room and shuts the door behind him before heading to the kitchen where he hoped to find breakfast ready. "Hey, Emy," he greets, leaning against the counter and watching her bustle around. She looked flustered, her blue and black hair frizzy and small bruises littering the pale column of her throat. _I don't even want to think about how she got those_. The unexpected news last night had been hard to bear, but Milo swallowed down the hurt and gave a happy smile while Kady left as quickly as she could. "What's for breakfast this morning?"

"Whatever you can find, Milo," she answers breathlessly, pouring tea in the cups set on the table. "Amy's got a stomach bug, so I have to nurse her back to health."

"Hope she feels better soon."

"I'm sure she'll get over it quickly enough. Could you do me a favor and take some tea up to Kady? I tried to earlier, but she had her music up so loud and her door was locked, so…." Emy trails off with a helpless shrug, pausing long enough to send Milo a stressed smile.

"She was like that when she got dumped by her first boyfriend, she should snap out of it and re-join society in a few days." He picks up two of the cups, walking out of the kitchen and over to the stairs, taking them two at a time before turning to the right and heading straight for Kady's bedroom. Like Emy had said, the door was locked and he could hear music blasting even out in the hallway. Knowing he needed to be a hard ass in order to get inside, he kicks the bottom of her door until the music volume is lowered.

"I don't want any damn breakfast, Emy," Kady shouts from inside.

"Easy, Kady-bug, I come bearing gifts!" There was a moment of silence before he heard light footsteps and then the door opened. "You look awful."

"Fuck you, too." Instead of her usual girly touch on grunge, Kady was dressed in a pair of jeans that were slightly too big, a gray and black ombre sweater that hung down to her knees, a pair of Jack Skellington Ugg boots, and she had her hair in a braided knot at the base of her head. "Did August send you up here to berate me?"

"No, Emy sent me with tea, but I do have some bad news concerning Dad." Kady slouches in her desk chair, watching him as he scoots the papers on her desk over enough to sit on it. "I think the woman ghost is messing with his head. I mean, he was talking to her this morning, but looked like he was in a trance when I first walked in. He didn't wake up until the bitch disappeared." Kady takes her cup of tea from him, but doesn't drink it yet.

"I may have some good news on the ghost front."

"The Boo Brothers are coming to exterminate them?"

"No," she says with a laugh," the guy ghostie is actually on our side. Remember back before Grandma Edith passed, we thought she was going senile since she kept claiming that her husband was some guy named Thomas?"

"Yeah, she was nuts, but what does that have to do with the cannibals inhabiting our house?"

"Well…." She draws the word out, voicing raising slightly in pitch as her eyes land on something over on Milo's right. "He's kind of the guy we're related to and we have no real ties to the McMichael family like we originally thought we did."

"The ghost of our great-great-grandpa is still floating around somewhere in our house, isn't he?"

"Not just somewhere, he's kind of right beside you." Milo goes still, eyes narrowing as Kady gulps down the scalding hot tea in an effort to avoid eye contact with him. With a tic working in his jaw, Milo slowly turns his head to look in the direction Kady had, finding the creepiest man he's ever seen just a few feet away.

"This ain't right."

"Pleased to meet you, too," the ghost, Thomas, replies with a gentle smile. Milo stands, gripping the back of his sister's chair all the while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the pale spector in front of him. He and the bitch shared a remarkable resemblance with the same dark hair and eyes, and their killer bone structure. "Are you feeling well, Milo?"

"I'm fine."

And then Milo was falling to the ground in a dead faint.

* * *

Kady was dreaming again, everything around her muted except for the faint sound of music coming from the next room. She knew who it was now, knew that she didn't have to fear him anymore, and so she got out of bed and went to his room. Moonlight sucked the colors out of the empty room and made everything seem blue, including Thomas as he smiled at her.

"Come dance with me," he inquires, holding out one pale hand.

"I can't dance," she whispers back, taking a few tentative steps further into the room. She still couldn't see the source of the music, but she wasn't going to question the strange qualities of dreams.

"In dreams, you can do anything you wish." Lips pressed together in nervousness, she places her hand in his, her right hand moving to his shoulder while his barely brushed against her hip. "It's a simple thing, this dance, just a combination of four steps." And then they were moving, dancing around the room as the music grew slightly louder, the notes high and sweet to Kady's ears. She liked this, liked the easy way they moved and how graceful Thomas made her feel.

"Was this your room when you were alive?"

"It was indeed." He gives her another smile and she could see straight through him when they passed the window, the faint light of the moon shining right through him despite how solid he felt. "Edith and I shared this room after I brought her here. She was a writer, you know."

"I remember her always talking about a lost manuscript that she brought back to England." Thomas nods, taking a moment to stop and make Kady spin before catching her up again and continuing the dance he'd learned as a child.

"It's almost Christmas." Kady nods, wondering where he was going with it. "I would very much like you and your brother to join me in here once everyone else has retired for the evening. I will tell you about what Edith was like before she grew old in exchange for a song from the two of you."

"I'd like that." Thomas continues to lead the dance, bringing them out of the room and back into Kady's, ending it by scooping her up in his arms and dropping her down onto her bed again. "Is tonight's adventure finished?"

"I'm afraid I'm not quite as strong as Lucille, I need time to rest and so do you, my sweet girl." He brushes some dark blonde hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger for a moment. She knew what he was thinking about, he was wondering what it'd be like if he'd been alive to see his son and grandchildren. "I would have spoiled you rotten had I lived, but now I'll have that chance."

"You would've made a really good dad."

"I don't know about that, but I suppose I could make a decent grandfather to you and Milo." His expression goes solemn as he stands and pulls the heavy comforter over her as the cold started to seep in again. "Kady, get everyone to stop drinking Emilia's tea, she's not who you think."


	8. Nancy Drew & A Hardy Boy

Two days before Christmas was a dismal time in the Hastings household, there were no decorations and no one was rushing to decorate either. After two weeks, Amy had only gotten progressively worse and nothing seemed to help her get any better. She had severe stomach cramps and vomited no matter what she ate or drank, and everyone was worried about the little girl.

She wasn't the only one that wasn't up to par, August was snappish and looked like he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in months even though he spent most of his time in his bedroom. Kady would often hear him talking to someone, but the second she grew brave and mentioned ghosts, he went into a rage and slapped her squarely across the face. Now she and Milo were sneaking up the stairs to the third floor after a note from Thomas requesting their presence, and they were happy to meet up with him.

Kady was curious about the elusive third floor, but was slightly disappointed when it looked like every other floor in the house. "Welp," she sighs," this was anti-climactic."

"Yeah," Milo nods," I thought the third floor was supposed to be creepy." The landing had the same dark paneled walls on the left that matched the hardwood flooring and banister. There were a few old fashioned chandeliers that still used candles instead of electric light and Kady was wondering it that was a sort of tribute to the original architecture. "Where were we supposed to meet Gramps?"

"I'm not sure, he just said to come on up and he'd take care of everything else."

"And so I have," comes Thomas's voice from behind them. Kady turns with a ready grin, a grin that only widens when Thomas takes in what she was wearing. Unlike the others in the house, she'd quickly adjusted to the cold and also had a boost of confidence that morning, so she'd dressed in a pair of short jean shorts, a teal crop top that showed off her anchor and wheel belly button ring, a teal and black plaid shirt over the crop top, and a pair of tie-dye converse. "What on earth are you wearing?"

"Clothes, you remember what those are, right, Gramps?" Milo breaks down into a fit of laughter as Thomas stares at Kady, shell-shocked. He looked like he'd just witnessed someone pushing his grandmother into traffic. "Wow, if you weren't already dead, I'd be worried about you keeling over right now."

"It's just scandalous. Milo, how could you let her walk around in something like that?"

"She wears what she wants," Milo shrugs. "She's a junior in high school now and I've got all the guys at our school convinced that I'll murder them while they sleep if they try to pressure her into anything." _Well, that explains why my last boyfriend looked so scared when I asked if he wanted to have sex_.

"High school?"

"The place where us kids are sent to learn. It's a horrible institution where they crush our souls and creativity, and the teachers are Krillitanes that are obsessed with using the brains of the really smart kids to get infinite power." Kady rolls her eyes at the reference, but smiles nonetheless since it meant Milo was just as geeky as she was no matter how much he protested otherwise.

"And why aren't you there now?"

"Christmas break, we don't go back until after the New Year unless August decides to homeschool us."

"That won't happen," Kady states firmly," we'd drive him up the wall after two hours trying to teach us science." Thomas, no longer as uncomfortable as he had been, offers a smile and gestures for the children to follow him down the hall. "Where are we going?"

"I've something to show you," he answers. It was strange to watch him walk, his legs moved the way a human's would, but his feet never touched the ground, he just floated a few inches above it. His fine clothing made a slight rustling noise and it was then that Kady really took a moment to study her grandfather—he wore a button up white dress shirt, a black waistcoat, black trousers, and what had to be the shiniest black dress shoes she's ever seen. His black hair was mostly slicked back and it curled at the ends like Milo's did.

The room Thomas leads them to is mainly empty with the exception of a mic stand and an old trunk that reminded Kady of the chests pirates used to store their treasure in. "I noticed how sad you both seemed, so I thought we could have an early get-together. I brought this contraption up from the parlor since I saw you both singing into that black thing." He points towards the mic stand and microphone. "Would you both sing something for me before I delve into sad stories?"

Milo and Kady share a look, Milo waggling his eyebrows and tips an imaginary hat in an obvious hint for the song he wanted to do. Kady, knowing she'd never live down the whining unless she agreed, gives her brother a nod. While Milo was a great singer, Kady could barely pass as average, so she was mentally cringing as Milo opens his mouth to start singing.

" _I bet you never heard ol' Marshall Dillion say Miss Kitty have you ever thought of running away_ ," he starts with a grin, grabbing hold of the mic _," settling down, would you marry me if I asked you twice and begged you pretty please_ _?"_ Kady gestures for Thomas to have a seat on the trunk while she sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, swaying along to the country song. " _She'd a said yes in a New York minute; they never tied the knot, his heart wasn't in it. He just stole a kiss as he rode away, he never hung his hat up at Kitty's place._ He moves his feet a little, but doesn't exactly dance as he continues," _I should've been a cowboy, I should've learned to rope and ride, wearing my six-shooter, riding my pony on a cattle drive. Stealing the young girls' hearts just like Gene and Roy; singin' those campfire songs, I should've been a cowboy_ _._ " After a few more lyrics, Milo finishes up and Kady claps so that Thomas gets the hint, her grandfather giving an approving smile in Milo's direction.

"Very well done, Milo," Thomas compliments as Milo sits on the floor near him. "And now, little one, I do believe it's your turn for a song."

"I don't sing," she says quickly, shaking her head. "I could send dogs into fits with my signing voice."

"I don't mind." Knowing he wouldn't relent, she gets up and walks over to the microphone, going through the songs that she knew until she found one that would work well enough. At least she had a lesser chance of forgetting the lyrics with this one.

" _Welcome to the end of eras, ice has melted back to life; done my time and served my sentence, dress me up and watch me die. If it feels good, tastes good, it must be mine. Dynasty decapitated, you just might see a ghost tonight. And if you don't now, now you know; I'm taking back the crown, I'm all dressed up and naked, I see what's mine and take it! Ohh, yeah, the crown, so close I can taste it! I see what's mine and take it. Sycophants on velvet sofas, lavish mansions, vintage wines; I am so much more than royal, snatch your chain and mace your eyes."_ Kady danced along as she sang, remembering the moves she and her friends had done at a college party two months ago. _"If it feels good, tastes good, it must be mine. Heroes always get remembered, but you know legends never die. And if you don't now, now you know; I'm taking back the crown, I'm all dressed up and naked, I see what's mine and take it! Ohh, yeah, the crown, so close I can taste it! I see what's mine and take it._ _Mortal kings are ruling castles; welcome to my world of fun. Liars settle into sockets, flip the switch and watch them run_."

His eyes bright, Thomas claps along with Milo, grinning broadly as Kady takes a dramatic bow. "A beautiful job, little one!"

"And no animals crying in protest either," Milo adds, laughing when Kady kicks at him. "Alright, Gramps, your turn."

"Of course, both of you walk into the next room and you'll find some things that should help you understand this house a bit better." Milo and Kady shrug, walking into the connecting room. It was pitch black inside and Milo stumbles around in the dark until he caught the edge of a curtain and tugged it down to allow sunlight to filter inside. Unlike the other rooms Kady's explored, this one was disgusting, coated in thick layers of dust with moldering books scattered around haphazardly. Kady kneels down and picks up one of the books, the pages fragile and tearing away in places.

The first page she opens it to is stained with dull red clay, the ink smudged, but a drawing of a house was discernable; the house in the drawing was large and immaculate with small details inked in the margins in a spidery handwriting, the words _Allerdale Hall_ written in the bottom right corner.

"It's the original design concepts," she says softly, flipping through the pages and finding more sketches of furniture and custom made light fixtures.

"Check this out," Milo says from across the room. Kady moved to stand next to him, each of them trading items so that Milo held the book and Kady an old photo. The photo was black and white, yellowed with age and beginning to decay with everything else in the room, but the faces in the photograph were unmistakable; it was the Sharpe siblings, dressed in their best clothing and their hair impeccably arranged. The squeak of floorboards gains their attention, both teens glancing up at the ceiling with mild curiosity.

"Are we gonna go snoop in the attic to find the source of that noise in an obviously haunted house?"

"Yeah."

"We'd so die in a horror movie."

"We'd be the first ones to get hacked to pieces." With resigned expressions, Kady and Milo set their things down and move out on the landing again, going straight for the staircase and making their way quietly up to the attic. There were only three doors that lined the wall on the fourth floor, and they were spaced far apart, so it was an easy choice for the teens. They moved to the door directly across from them and peeked through the gap between the wall and partly closed door, easily picking out August in the darkness.

He was in a trance like Milo had described two weeks ago, his eyes glazed over as he stares straight ahead at a woman that could only be Thomas's older sister, Lucille. The pair were talking in hushed voices, Lucille pacing around the room and leaving faint impressions in the dust that coated everything. She was stronger than Thomas still and almost looked completely solid with only hints of the strange fog ghosts were made up of.

"The house is coming awake," August muttered, staying in place as Lucille melts against his back. "As mad as it was all those years ago—madness feeding on madness." The room they were in was huge and every available surface was covered in small wooden boxes with glass covers that had moths and butterflies pinned inside, dead and dissected. It looked like a mad scientist's workshop, only with bugs instead of people.

"Yes," Lucille murmurs, running her hands up and down August's limp arms," and I need that madness to gain my strength." The floorboards creak under Lucille's heeled boots and the crimson of her dress looked bright in the dark room. Kady jumps a little when she feels Milo grasping her elbow, letting her brother lead her back down to the third floor.

"Something bad is gonna happen," he hisses, still holding her arm tightly. "We're leaving after Christmas, I don't care if we have to knock August unconscious and drag him to the car ourselves."

"Why wait till after Christmas," I ask, desperate to leave this house behind for the rest of my life.

"I heard on the radio that it should be warm after Christmas, temperatures in the low seventies that'll melt the ice enough for us to drive back to that village." Kady nods, casting a worried glance over her shoulder at the staircase. "Let's get back to our rooms before August comes down. I don't feel like getting yelled at for being on the third floor." Milo takes off without waiting on her and Kady hesitates for a moment before walking down the hall to the room Thomas had originally led them to.

It was empty now apart from the trunk; the mic stand and Thomas were both gone. With another glance over her shoulder, she hefts the trunk in her arms and power-walks back to the second floor and directly to her room, hiding the trunk under her bed. She'd find out what was in there tomorrow, but for now she needed to go check on poor Amy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs in this chapter were 'Should've Been a Cowboy' by Toby Keith and 'Emperor's New Clothes' by Panic at the Disco.


	9. Sweet Dreams to Nightmares

Kady sits in front of the trunk she found yesterday, eyes focused on the old fashioned lock that refused to be picked. She'd tried bobby pins, the tab of a Coke can, and kicking it, but the desired effect hadn't happened. So here she was, glaring and wondering why Thomas would lead her to a trunk and not give her the damn key. _Wait a second…. Key!_ She jumps up and runs down the hall to Milo's room, not even bothering to wake him up as she starts rummaging around in his desk drawers.

"The fuck you doin'," he asks groggily, sitting up in bed and using the flashlight on his phone to illuminate the room.

"Looking for the key," she answers hurriedly, pushing aside his notebooks and papers before moving on to the next drawer.

"What key?"

"The one we found in the stables! Where'd you put it?" She heard him getting up and walking across the room, but she only stopped digging when he dangled the bronze key in front of her face.

"This key, Sis?" She smiles up at him, then starts laughing when she sees his hair was sticking up all over his head and his AC/DC shirt was half stuck in the waistband of his pajama bottoms. "Why do you need it so badly?" Kady stands up and tries for the key only to have Milo hold it out of her reach. "Take it, I don't want to stand here all night." Kady jumps repeatedly for the key, but Milo was taller by a good five inches and he managed to keep it just out of her grasp.

He dances away from Kady, light on his feet, but he doesn't expect it when she throws her weight against him and forces him to fall backward on the bed, straddling his chest as she tries to wrestle the key out of his hands. "Hand it over, Milo!"

"Not a chance, blondie!" Milo flips them, both of them falling off the bed and to the hard floor with twin grunts. Kady continues to struggle, slapping his chest and wrapping her legs around his to gain some leverage to flip them again. She knees Milo in the side, not enough to cause any harm, but enough for him to loosen his grip. The blow to his side seemed to daze him a little and Kady took full advantage to snatch the key from him

She lets out a triumphant noise, jumping up with the prize in hand. "I've got- Ahh!" Milo had tackled her to the floor again, sitting on her lower back and snatching the key away. "That's so cheating!"

"Cheating would be putting this on a high shelf and watching you come up with different ways to get it down until August gets onto both of us." Kady makes a sound of frustration, wiggling under him, but unable to push him off. Eventually she goes still underneath him, a sly grin making itself known.

"You can either get off of me and give me that key or I can start explaining, in-depth, of why Once Upon a Time is one of the best shows on TV, I'll be including quotes from Colin O'Donoghue and a few interviews I've memorized."

"You wouldn't dare."

"I think I'll start with the pivotal episode where Hook starts to wriggle his into our hearts—"

"Shit, just shut up and take it!" Milo jumps up and gives Kady the key once she was standing, the disgusted expression he had only making her grin broaden.

"Just so you know, I could kick your ass in poker because I just bluffed my way right out from under your bony ass." Milo makes a face and follows her down the hall, running his fingers through his hair along the way.

"What's so important about that key anyway? I mean, other than the fact that you almost broke every bone in your arm to get it."

"I think I know what it goes to." They were in her room now and she quickly knelt in front of the chest, the key held gently in her hands. "I really feel like we should savor this moment of suspense because who knows when we'll ever get a chance to do this again." Milo sits beside her and snatches the key back out of her hands, thrusting it in the lock and turning it.

"Or we could just open the damn thing and savor it later if there's gold or something in here." Scowling, Kady pushes the lid open and peers inside, Milo joining her and the two resting their heads together as they stare at the lone object in the trunk. It was disappointing to say the least, a simple stack of papers that had been protected from the ravages of time since they were locked securely in the trunk.

"That's definitely not gold."

"Someone needs to break it to Thomas that a stack of papers isn't something most teens aspire to find in mysterious locked chests." Kady nods in agreement, lifting the pages out and brushing the dust off them. " _Crimson Peak_ ," Milo reads aloud," _a true story written by Edith Sharpe_. I guess Grandma wasn't as nuts as we all gave her credit for." Kady flips to the next page of the manuscript, her and Milo leaning against the side of her bed as they took turns reading.

" _When I was still a young woman, I made the great mistake of marrying a man before I truly knew him. His name was Thomas Sharpe and I had never met a man like him in Buffalo before, he was incredible and seemed so cultured compared to the men that surrounded me. I had thought him a god and put aside my father's numerous words of caution just so I could be with him, and it was something I continue to regret_."

" _The Sharpe siblings—Thomas and his elder sister, Lucille—turned out to be lovers and murderers, Lucille had manipulated Thomas, not only to her bed, but to marry wealthy women and drain them of their money before they were poisoned. Lucille put it in their tea, you see, they would grow sicker by the day and she would give them more tea, pretend to be their nursemaid, until they expired. Their belongings were hidden in the clay mines below the house and their bodies were thrown into the vats of scarlet clay._ "

" _This would have continued had I been without help, but I had the other women and my good friend to thank for my escape, and surprisingly, I had Thomas in the end, as well. The murdered women appeared to me as apparitions, covered in the clay that soaked the grounds, the clay mixed with blood and dripping upwards as they were not from this realm. I don't suppose I could blame everything on Lucille and Thomas for they had terrible parents that often kept them locked away and the house wasn't only a house._ "

" _The house was a monster in itself, it was a horrible thing that was alive and fed on the madness of the Sharpe family. I fear that all descendants will be cursed to die within the confines of its drafty halls, I fear that the child within me will share a fate similar to that of its father. I carry the last of the Sharpe family, but I hope to break the chain by changing its surname. From now on, it shall be Alexander McMichael if it is a boy and Alexandria McMichael if it is a precious baby girl._ "

" _I will protect my family from the insanity, I will die knowing they will be safe and far from England, far from Allerdale Hall where all Sharpes become damned._ "

"And to think," Milo says, still staring down at the thick stack of pages," that was just the introduction."

"At least our ghosts don't look like something out of a Stephen King book."

"Keep reading, Kady, Grandma's got me curious about what happened here." And so Kady continued to read, unaware of what was going on up in the attic.

* * *

Lucile Sharpe missed few things about life, but the one thing she missed most of all was the pulse of adrenaline when she killed someone, the way her heart beat faster and she felt a flush of warmth in the otherwise frigid house. She missed the way fresh blood felt on her hands, warm and wet and everything this house fed on. She needed it like an addict needed Laudanum, she was drawn to bright living souls.

That's where August and Emy came into the picture; for her plan to work, she needed to possess the both of them. She needed a physical body to commit her crimes against the people that claim her bloodline. They were not her relatives, they belonged to Edith Cushing and her traitor of a brother, but killing them would give her the added boost of power. She would absorb their souls into herself until she was solid again, not a cursed wraith that can't even step outside.

She would kill everyone in the house to gain control again and it would be an added bonus of revenge against Thomas since she knows he cares for Milo and Kadence. He betrayed her, forced her to kill him, helped Edith murder her, and the two children he cared about would pay for his sins.

Emy had started out as a way to draw energy into herself, but had slowly evolved into a viable option of becoming Lucille's physical body—she was fairly attractive and shared Lucille's fine bone structure, and she was perfect to seduce August Hastings into moving him and his family all the way here. August didn't have a strong will like his children did, his wife's death left an emptiness inside of him that made him vulnerable to possession. She just had to break him down a bit more and she would have the strength of his body to murder his children.

The poison was taking too long if the oldest children were drinking it at all, but Amy was almost to the point of death. Barely six years old and half a ghost already, her body growing weaker after every cup of tea. Kady had tried to tend to the child, but it became impossible when Lucille convinced August to tell his children to stay away. She smiles wickedly at the thought of the two children, caught between choosing which one to murder first.

Milo was physically stronger than his sister, but Kady had the brighter soul and would lend Lucille enough strength to banish her brother's spirit for good. She had the rest of it planned out, she would possess August and kill his two children while Emy took care of her daughter, and then she would give August full clarity back to see the good work he'd done. The sight of his children lying at his feet and his hands slick with their blood would be enough to drive the poor man to suicide. Maybe she could convince him to go down the narrow tunnel to the mines and drown himself in one of the vats she kept full of fresh clay.

Squeaking floorboards makes her look away from the wriggling moth she was pinning in place with a sewing needle. August stood in the doorway of her attic room, hazel eyes cloudy as he stares at the wall across from him. He was so weak now, no sign of the caring father he had been before coming here. That first trip was all it took; she was able to sink her claws in him just enough that he convinced himself it was his idea to restore Allerdale Hall to its former glory. His face had more wrinkles now, paler than it had been, and his lips were pressed together in a thin line—the only sign of him fighting hard against her.

She could feel his subconscious mind rebelling against her commands, wailing for her to kill him and spare the children because they were all he had left of the life he'd lived. On the days he was too weak to fight, he would bombard her with his memories, memories of spending time with his children and wife—spending hours in Kady's sickroom, drawing with her, or taking Milo to his swim meets and cheering him on from the stands. Sometimes he would be dancing with his wife, Estelle's hair the same shade of dark brown as Thomas's had been as a child. In short, he loved his family and would do anything to protect them, but he no longer had that ability.

Soundlessly, Lucille stands and sets aside her project before crossing the room and joining August in the doorway. He moved when she asked it of him, his back to her as her hands rested against his broad shoulders. Had anyone been watching they would have said it was like watching Lucille turn into small bursts of light as she disappeared into August, the older man only letting out a faint gasp as she fully possessed him, stamping down on the memories and protests before they could toss her back out. It was only when August gave a calculating look around the room that Lucille felt truly victorious, and she decided who her first victim would be.

It was dark by then, only three hours from Christmas, and she moved quietly down the stairs to the second floor before moving down the hallways to the last door on the left. Moonlight illuminated the messy room, shining in through the large window above the desk and helping her see as she made her way to the four-poster bed and perched delicately on the edge. With the old rush, she reaches out with August's hands and wrapped them around the slim column of exposed flesh, squeezing tightly even as the body beneath her began to struggle.

Milo's eyes flashed open and he beat at the hands around his throat, but Lucille was too close to her goal now to be deterred.


	10. Beasts Under Your Bed

A hard slap to her face is what woke Kady up, the sudden pain spreading from her sore nose to the rest of her face rapidly. Fully prepared to hit Milo back, Kady sits up and turns her glare on him only to freeze in shock. Now, rude awakenings were something that made Kady angry, but the fact that she was woken up because her father was currently strangling her brother left her dumbfounded for a moment. Milo's face was a dark shade of purple and his movements were turning sluggish as August tightened his grip around Milo's throat, his eyes focused solely on his task.

Desperate and in panic mode, Kady grabbed the first thing her hand came into contact with and bashed her father over the head with it, sending August to the floor in unconsciousness. "Come on," she gasps, struggling to kick the covers off and moving to Milo's side of the bed. After reading the manuscript, they'd been too freaked out to sleep alone, so they'd retired in Milo's room and it's a damn good thing they did. Milo, trying hard to get his breath back, was unable to help much as Kady forced him to stand and half-dragged him out of her room.

They needed to get downstairs and warn the other two that August was on a rampage, but the stairs seemed so far away and Kady's asthma was making itself known as she shuffled down the hall. They were at the halfway point when she felt something hard collide with her back, knocking her to the ground and Milo against the wall. What little breath she had left was knocked out of her lungs by the blow and she could do nothing as she was turned onto her back to face August.

He was panting hard, pale green eyes holding no remorse as he pulled his arm back and then delivered a right hook that had Kady seeing stars. Even as dazed as she was, she knew for a fact that her father had hazel eyes and the person attacking them right now had to be Lucille. Kady wanted to struggle as August covered her mouth and nose with one of his large hands, wanted to scream and claw to get her daddy back, but all she could do was lie there and pray that he'd come to his senses.

She cut her gaze towards Milo, but he was worse off than her and blood was trickling down the side of his face from where he'd been knocked against the wall. Knowing he wouldn't be able to help any time soon, Kady looks back at August, her gaze pleading as she met and held his look. August had to be in there somewhere and maybe he could kick Lucille out of him before he smothered Kady.

But the longer he stayed like that and the more her lungs burned, she came to the realization that her father was long gone by now and she doubted she'd make it to Christmas morning. Her heart sped up, desperately working to keep blood flowing to her brain and she tasted blood as her teeth cut the inside of her lips because of the pressure August was using.

As suddenly as August was on her, he was off her again and Thomas was standing over her protectively. "How dare you," he growls at August, the air around him crackling with energy. He looked almost solid as he stood his ground, but there were two of him wavering in front of Kady and she was having a hard time in taking deep breaths to regulate her heartbeat. "They're only children, Lucille, and you will not harm them under my roof."

"It's not your roof," Lucille shoots back in August's voice. The smile she sends Thomas's way was predatory, her teeth bared and her hands clenched into fists so tightly that the dull nails cut into August's palm and causes blood to trickle to the floor. They stared each other down as Kady crawled to her brother's side, pulling him close and holding him as the terrible scene played out.

Quicker than she'd ever seen, August darted towards her, but Thomas was faster and shoved him to the side. He tottered for a second, then the leg of his pajama pants caught on a nail and he was sent backwards against the elevator, the cables not strong enough to support the sudden weight and snapping, sending the whole thing crashing to the ground. Lucille didn't even have time to cry out, the sound of grinding metal and breaking bone echoing loudly in Kady's ears as tears stung her eyes.

"Daddy," she rasps, shaking hard and staring at the spot he'd just been standing, only empty air now.

"Get Amy," Thomas instructs, helping the siblings to their feet. "I'll get the keys for that great metal beast that brought you here and you three can meet me outside." Kady only stood there, her eyes wide and her lips quivering as her tears fell. _Daddy's dead…. Daddy's dead…._ The words kept repeating, bouncing around in her head as she processed what had just happened. "Kadence Marie Hastings," Thomas bellows, shaking her hard enough for her teeth to chatter. "Do what I said and get out of here!"

"Y-yeah." She nods and wraps an arm around Milo's waist as she continues to the stairs and then down to the first floor. Waiting for them on the first floor was a mess of broken metal bars and August's body, a pool of blood spreading ever outward as he lay there—a large piece of metal speared through his chest and his head bent at an unnatural angle with a bit of white bone peeking out from the torn flesh.

"Amy," Milo gasps, standing a little better on his own and pulling Kady with him towards Amy's room. The little girl would be too sick to get out on her own and Kady hoped like hell that Emy would be sane enough to carry her out to the truck. Amy's bedroom is completely dark as Kady steps inside, a faint light coming from the little pink nightlight plugged in near her bed. The light was just enough to illuminate Amy's body, lying completely still without even the faintest breath to stir her thick hair.

"She's dead." Not entirely convinced herself and praying that it was only an illusion, Kady kneels in front of the bed and rests her fingers against the little girl's neck, flinching back when she feels the shifting of broken bone. "Lucille must have gotten to her before she came after us."

"Not quite true, Kady," comes Emy's voice from the doorway. Milo turns sharply and instinctively stands in front of Kady, swaying a little as he struggled to find balance again. Emy was standing there confidently and even smiling as she held August's pistol in her hands, aiming it in Milo's direction. "I killed her a few moments ago when I heard the struggle upstairs. My master will be pleased with it once she sees my good work." The sound of crashing objects overhead makes Emy look up, her smile not diminishing even as Milo lunges forward.

They struggled for the gun, Emy obviously unused to using one as she kept her finger on the trigger. Kady stood while they struggled, squinting in the darkness for anything she could use to knock Emy unconscious or at least daze her so that Kady and Milo could get out. The room wasn't anywhere near as cluttered as her own bedroom and she managed to throw back the curtains to allow for a bit of light to shine in and help her out. She casts a glance over her shoulder, Milo and Emy still fighting for control, and then she focuses back on her task.

 _Porcelain doll_. There was a creepy antique doll set on the mantle, the porcelain shining in the moonlight as she grabbed for it and turned around. She barely made it two steps when a loud _pop_ sounded and Milo collapsed, the noise making everyone cover their ears and Kady shout in pain. The sound was unbelievably loud without the protective ear plugs August had forced her to wear when they went shooting together and she was acutely aware now that he made her wear them for her own protection.

Thankfully, Emy was just as caught off guard from the noise and Kady was able to cross the room and break the doll over Emy's head despite the disorienting ringing in her ears. "Milo," she shouts, dropping to his side and helping him sit up. A large stain was spreading across his shoulder, staining the light gray of his tee.

"Get a belt or something," he instructs, grinding his teeth to keep from crying out in pain. Her hands shaking, Kady moves to the wardrobe and digs around until she finds a tiny pink belt, and then goes back to her brother, letting her father's lesson in tourniquets take over as she tried hard to staunch the bleeding. "It's not gonna work good, so we need to get to the hospital."

Despite him trying to be brave, he still lets out a squeak of pain and his legs buckle under him when he tries to stand. "We have to get to the truck." Her heart was beating fast again, but the added adrenaline allowed her to focus better than she had upstairs, hooking her arms under Milo's and dragging him out of the room to the front door. Again, her asthma was interfering, but she pushed through the attack and managed to open the door before dragging him out into the scarlet snow and collapsing.

"Help me up." Both of them gasping in the sudden, stinging cold, Kady helps him stand and they lean on each other as they make their way to the truck parked halfway up the long driveway. As he'd promised, Thomas was standing beside the truck, looking weaker than before and barely managing a smile when the siblings stop in front of him.

"Drive carefully," Thomas advises," the roads will be atrocious this time of year."

"Thanks, Gramps, for helping Kady and me."

"It was my honor, now get in this contraption and get some help." Thomas opens the driver's side door, helping Kady shove Milo inside before she climbed in herself, having to adjust the seat and mirrors before turning the key in the ignition. "I love you both, know that always."

"Love you too, Grandpa," Kady says with a sad smile before turning the truck to face the gate and beginning to drive. At seventeen, Kady still didn't have her license, but she knew the basics of driving and had seen enough action movies to know she really wanted to ram the gates at the end of the drive, letting out a childish laugh as the metal bounced off the hood and to the side as she drove past.

"Tone it down a bit, Vin Diesel," Milo quips, smiling even through the pain. His face was ashen from the agony and blood loss, and Kady noticed the way he kept his lips pressed together in order to keep his sounds of pain muffled. "How about some music? I need the distraction." He didn't wait for her answer, grabbing the CDs from under the front seat and shuffling through them until he found the disk he'd put together for the car trip to California. " _Jessie is a friend_ ," he sings softly, voice cracking in places," _yeah, I know he's been a good friend of mine_."

" _But lately something's changed that ain't hard to define_ ," Kady sings along quietly, finding it hard to see through the swirling snow and darkness," _Jessie's got himself a girl and I want to make her mine_." It was the song their dad had been obsessed with when they were younger, so they both knew the words by heart and would sing it when they needed cheering up.

" _And she's watching him with those eyes_ ," they sing in unison," _and she's loving him with that body, I just know it; and he's holding her in his arms, late, late at night. You know I wish that I had Jessie's girl!_ " They continue singing, Kady stretching out a hand to grasp his free one. His right hand was pressed tightly against his left shoulder as blood continued pumping out and she was worried about him passing out or dying right beside her before she could make it to the village.

"Sing it, Bubby."

" _Where can I find a woman like that_ ," he belts out even as he struggled to keep his eyes open. " _I play along with the charade, that doesn't seem to be a reason to change. You know I feel so dirty when they start talking cute; I wanna tell her that I love her, but the point is probably moot_." The song continues playing loudly, switching to Enter Sandman once it was finished as the classic rock fills the cab. By the time they were halfway to the village, Milo had gone quiet and his shirt was soaked through with blood, Milo staring out the windshield and shivering from the cold.

"Just a little longer," Kady mumbles to herself, glancing briefly in her brother's direction. When she looks back to the road, a woman is standing there a few feet away, Kady instinctively slamming on the breaks and cutting the wheel to avoid hitting her. It's only when the truck begins to spin wildly on the road that she realizes that the woman in the road had been Lucille, the woman's cackling laugh growing louder as the truck catches on a boulder hidden under the snow and makes the truck come to a stop.

The suddenness of it all and the lack of seatbelt had Kady lurching around in the truck and the abrupt stop had her falling forward, the top of her skull connecting with the windshield, and then she saw only blackness.

* * *

Milo woke slowly, fighting his way through a haze to full consciousness again and dreading what he would find when he opened his eyes. At first, everything was blurry and distorted, his head feeling like it was about to explode, but the blurriness cleared up after a few blinks. The truck was right-side up and his tightened seatbelt had done a good job of slowing the amount of blood that pumped from his wound, but he was still dizzy and felt sick to his stomach.

The coppery scent of blood filled his nose and he could already tell that he had shards of glass in embedded in his stomach and chest from the accident. _Kady_. He looks around for his sister, expecting to find her in the cab with him, just as confused as he was, but the driver's seat was empty save for blood and there was a massive hole in the windshield. Swallowing down his fear, Milo opens the glovebox and pulls out the pocket knife August always kept in there, cutting through his seatbelt in order to get out of the car.

His right ankle was swelling and pain shot through his leg whenever he took a step, but Milo stumbled his way over to the yellow and red blob a few feet away. Kady was lying there, her eyes closed and her lips parted, her blonde hair had streaks of red in it and the top of her head was crushed in from the impact with the hard glass; one of her legs was bent under her, there were scratches all over her, but what really caught his attention was the large shard of glass stuck through her throat. He knew then and there that the glass in her throat hadn't been from the accident, it was punched through too cleanly for it to have been anything else than murder.

Shaking with rage and grief, Milo rises and starts back to the truck, and climbs inside, having to pump the gas a few times before the truck roared to life. Once he was sure it wouldn't stop again, Milo goes back and picks Kady up, lying her across the back seat and brushing her hair off her face before he got back behind the wheel and began to drive towards the house. He didn't have anyone left in his family and he'd be damned if he left before he got some revenge of his own. Lucille had thought they would go down without a fight, but she should've just killed him when she had the chance because he was about to take everything she loved from her. He'd heard her whispering a lot over the past few weeks, always talking about being the lady of the house, so Milo was going to take her house from her.

An hour and a half later finds the truck parked in front of Allerdale Hall and Milo making his way to the small storage building. The shed didn't have much in it now that everything had been moved into the house, but there was still two gallons of gas for the lawnmower and Milo knew there was a lighter in the kitchen—he'd hidden it in there himself for when he wanted to sneak a cigarette. As he entered the house again, he could hear screaming and crashing coming from the attic, the noises faint.

Obviously Thomas and Lucille were going at it and he hoped his grandfather beat the bitch into the dirt. It would provide distraction enough for Milo to complete his mission at any rate. With one of the gallons in hand and the lighter in his pocket, he starts on the third floor, pouring most of the gas on the moldering books and papers before making his way back to the stairs, going from room to room and picking up small objects on his way—Kady's favorite teddy bear, the beanie he almost always had on, and wedding ring Estelle had picked out for August.

Halfway through the second floor, he had to pick up the other gas can to finish up, making sure to cover Emy in gas since she was still unconscious in her daughter's room. Just to make sure she stayed that way, Milo grabbed a heavy lamp and let it drop, denting in part of her cheek. Finally, Milo dumps the last of the gas on the front porch before bringing the Zippo out and lighting the flame. He was hesitant to let it fall, well aware that this could mean destroying Thomas, but the fear of what Lucille might do to somebody else had his hand relaxing and Milo jumping back as the flames climbed high.

Weaker than ever, he limps back to the truck long enough to pull Kady out before moving to lie down a few feet from the blazing fire. His sister was snuggled up to his side, skin cold and her breath no longer stirring his hair, but he needed this last moment with her before he said goodbye. Overhead the sky was turning different shades of pink and orange as the sun rose, Milo nodding once and closing his eyes.

"Merry Christmas, Kady," he whispers before he goes limp beneath her. The fire blazed on through the rest of the day, the only color to be seen apart from the vermilion snow. In the village, people celebrated with their families, blissfully unaware of the slaughter they would finds weeks later—three burned inside the home, two bodies outside that had been kept intact by the freezing snow surrounding them.

No one noticed the people in the half-ruined house that watched as they carted the bodies away, they didn't notice that each of the four phantoms looked exactly like the bodies had before their deaths. What Edith had written in her manuscript was true, that all Sharpes would be damned should they enter Allerdale Hall. But the Hastings were back together, Thomas and Amy were with them, and Lucille and Emy had been banished to walk the narrow clay mines beneath the house.

For the first time in weeks, all was well.


	11. Epilogue, Seven Years Later

The house had been restored not long after the fire, the Historical Society sending in workers every few weeks to ensure the house stayed in pristine shape in case any tourists wanted to walk the famed halls. After the murders seven years previous, Allerdale Hall had been on any self-respecting ghost hunter's bucket list. People swarmed the property on Halloween, paying buckets of money just to peek around inside and see the ruined elevator that had been August Hasting's doom.

No one was quite sure what had happened or who had killed everyone, but most people whispered that the son had gone insane after being stuck in the house for a month with only his family to talk to. They said he'd pushed his father into the unstable elevator, killed the maid and her daughter, and then murdered his sister when she tried to get away. Others said that the Sharpe bloodline was cursed, that it was only a matter of time before the curse took them all out, and it was helped along by the idea everyone had that ghosts were the problem.

But all the fear in the world didn't stop the newest group of ghost hunters from driving all the way there, their cars laden down with equipment and food, music playing loudly as the passengers sang along to it. There were five people in all and they couldn't look anymore different. All were in their late teens, but the different styles they sported would be enough to send someone's head spinning—the oldest boy was dressed in designer clothes, the girl next to him sported what she lovingly referred to as hippy-chic, the girl in the back had curly black hair and managed to make a tomboy-styled clothing look girly, while the boy in the other car dressed in rumpled clothing from the night before, and the boy next to him had a style all his own that made him look adorable.

The two cars parked in front of the house, everyone getting out to stretch and shooting each other excited grins. This was like their very own Stanley Hotel and they were all hoping to get some evidence before they had to head back to school. "What did I tell you," the hippy, Rachel, asks, bumping her shoulder against the boy to her left.

"Well, it doesn't look too shabby," the boy, Mike, replies," but if I get lice from this place, you're doing the treatments." Rachel just grins, not taking her eyes off the house. It was amazing, like something out of one of her ghost stories.

"Where do you want this, Eggs," Benjamin asks, holding one of the heavy bags. His glasses were halfway down his nose, but he never seemed to notice. Before Rachel could answer, Noah spoke up, using his free hand to fix Benjamin's glasses. There was definite chemistry between the two boys, but it was better left as friendship since Noah and Titch were dating.

"Follow me, Benji," Noah instructs confidently," I'm sure we can find you a room that's not too dusty." Titch grins and follows the boys inside with her own bag and the expensive boxed-up tent Mike had generously bought for them all. Mike was loaded, but he made a point not to brag about it, and that was what Rachel liked best about him. Well, that and the way he could scream like a girl whenever his precious hair was mussed.

"Shall we enter the house on haunted hill," Mike asks, waggling his fingers in a dramatic attempt at horror.

"After you, my good sir," Rachel says with a bow. Mike gains what Rachel called his 'aristocrat' face, the one he pulled whenever he was around super important people and had to be on his best behavior.

"Come along, Eggs. I want to bust me some ghosts." As the pair crossed the threshold, Rachel became aware of faint whispering that grew louder the closer she got to the kitchen. Thinking her friends had found something interesting in there, she moves to look inside, finding the room completely empty of people.

"… _Think they'll be scared if we slam the shudders_ ," a male voice asked. Rachel smiles, having studied the house's history long enough to know that the voice must've belonged to Milo Hastings. From what she'd read about him in his obituary section, he'd been the type to pull pranks while his sister and father were more subdued.

"Sorry," she says by way of answer, enjoying the surprised gasps she got from the ghosts," slamming shudders are just part of the job and you'll have to do a lot better than that to get us scared."


End file.
